


Strider Ascending

by Bisabis, PeregrineWilliams



Category: Homestuck, Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, davejade - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-03-26 00:23:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3830308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bisabis/pseuds/Bisabis, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeregrineWilliams/pseuds/PeregrineWilliams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave Strider, human, Earth-born, probably not royalty in any way whatsoever. Until he gets attacked at a sperm bank and almost gets kidnapped. He is then rescued by a mysterious canine-masked warrior and told he is an intergalactically wanted man. Skeptical of the whole thing, he joins the warrior on a field trip to, you guessed it, outer space, in order to find out who he is and literally what the hell is going on here.<br/>Art by PeregrineWilliams<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jade

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Peregrine of course for drawing the art and beta reading  
> Also thanks to my sister Becky for beta reading and bouncing ideas

“So, what ever shall we do with this planet now?” Rose strides calmly among the abandoned props strewn about the tented city. The people who lived here before were surprised, to say the least, at the existence of life elsewhere in the universe. They were a healthy population of ten billion, with only a few thousand precluded in the culling. This particular planet was famous for their unique acrobatic entertainment and collection of extraordinary wildlife. Half of said wildlife had already been sold to prevent overpopulation for the possibility of future endeavors.

“I never was a fan of this place,” Dirk says as he adjusts his pointed sunglasses. “Too creepy for my taste.”

“I admit that I will miss the drink,” Roxy adds, rubbing her temple. “I’m thinking of giving up soon in honor of the people that used to be here.”

“How very noble,” Rose pronounces with slight scorn. “How long will that last, I wonder? A century? Two? As long as you are able to remember their existence?”

“How rude, sister.” Roxy plants her other hand on her hip, her bright pink floor-length formal wear flowing with her.

“Rose, please extrapolate why we have gathered here,” says Dirk, bored by the bickering. He notices purple and blue sand on his orange robes and brushes it away.

“Peace, brother of mine. I simply required a place for us to be alone,” Rose says, laser-focused on the topic at hand. She fixes her fringe with a delicate touch, hardly rustling her regal lavender robe endowed with hundreds of matching tea roses. “You do remember our eldest brother?”

“Who doesn’t?” Roxy asks. “Such a waste to be lost to the afterlife.” She pauses, eyeing her sister. “Are you concerned that your future isn’t secure enough without his inheritance?”

“Preposterous. I simply found that his will states that it will go to me after a certain period of time.”

“Sounds like fear to me,” Dirk sneers.

Rose narrows her eyes, but continues. “My sources say that his genetic code has finally appeared elsewhere.”

Roxy laughs. “In order for DNA to be in that exact same order would one in trillions.”

Rose smiles with a hint of complacency. “Now who is fearful?”

* * *

 

Dave Strider. Human. Earth-born. Normal appearance when his dark red eyes are covered with a pair of aviators, blond hair, and freckles fucking everywhere. On a good day, he goes to work in the same shirt he sleeps in, brushes his hair, and picks up breakfast with his roommate John Egbert in their home-grown business, “Two Men & A Pickup.” John’s girlfriend Vriska recently moved in with them. She claims it’s only temporary, but it doesn’t sit right with Dave. Nothing about her does, really. Dave tries to be civil with everyone, but it’s trying sometimes. He tries not to wake up every morning asking himself what he did in a past life to deserve living in a shitty apartment working a failing business. What he does instead is collapse on his twin bed and mumble “fuck you go away” into his mattress when someone comes within three feet of his general area.

“Hey, Dave, penny for your thoughts,” Vriska pops into his half of the room, which is separated by a curtain on a string connecting the walls. The only reason she should be here is none at all. John’s not even back yet, he went to go get the car washed after he dropped off Dave, and here she is… Isn’t she supposed to be at work?

“I’ll take any money you have, if it’s all the same to you,” he mutters.

“I just learned that you can make a living playing pocket pinball.”

He turns his head towards her voice and narrows his eyes as thin as possible without closing them. “Why would you say that to me? You come into my side of the house, on the day of my daughter’s wedding—”

“Oh, shut up and listen,” she interrupts, rolling her eyes. “You know that thing you want?”

“A two-bedroom house with a stable job?”

“No, you idiot, the thing?”

“A Damascus steel katana?”

“Yeah, that one. With only one willy whipping session at the Texas Sperm Bank, you too can buy your own actual sword.”

“Are you serious?” He tries not to sound intrigued, completely failing at it.

“Totally and completely serious. And all you have to do is polish your rocket.”

“Can you not with the masturbation synonyms? It’s not your style.”

“Well excuse me for trying to help.” She tosses the flier at him and flips the curtain away, sashaying out the door.

The paper lands on his back. He reaches behind and brings it around to his face. It is in full color, with men looking happy and the prices in hues that assault his corneas. He rises up to his knees with a groan. “Eh, why not?”

* * *

 

“Can you at least remove your mask, ma’am?” the police officer nervously asks the extremely tall, heavily armored woman. Her long black hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and she wears a half-mask of a white dog and goggles covering her eyes. The sides of her head have two dog ears that match the mask in color, which she is pretty sure that the officer is staring at, too.

She shakes her head.

“The goggles then?”

She looks up, appearing to be thinking, then nods. She carefully pulls them off, revealing a pair of glasses. In the process, she accidentally reveals a set of small blades strapped to her inner forearm.

“Do you have a permit for those?” he asks, pointing to the blades.

She glances at them, then the officer, then tilts her head to the side and blinks.

"I'm going to have to take you down to the precinct."

The woman sighs, puts the goggles back on, knocks him out with his own taser, then gingerly carries him to his cruiser over her shoulder. This is not what she wanted to do today. It’s almost dusk and she hasn’t even established contact yet. She kicks on her zero-gravity boots and gathers momentum before taking off, continuing to her destination. She has to get there before those other bounty hunters do. Her client commanded it. The requirement was to bring the package alive, or be culled if it was anything less than so. She’s in direct competition with them, and whoever brings the package first is guaranteed freedom.

According to her research, he is going to a “sperm bank.” She’s already been to two of them today with no luck. Many blocks after her run-in with the police officer, she walks up to the front just as the figures inside lock the door. Before they can close the shades, she catches a glimpse of the package sitting on a chair inside, reading a magazine. She races to the back door and yanks a human out of the way. At least, she thinks they’re human. She sniffs them and determines that they are in fact human and simply tosses them into the dumpster. She carefully pulls the door the rest of the way open and slinks inside. She sniffs again and detects eight nakodiles and one salamander.

Slimy creatures, nakodiles. They can withstand intense heat and freezing cold with their thick scales. Not only are they carnivores, but they can also mimic voices perfectly. The species that can control them are salamanders. They have the power of speech, controlling lesser species with a single word. The fortunate thing is that not many creatures are weaker than they are. Jade herself is much more superior to salamanders, but still below humans.

Among the nakking, she can hear them converse behind closed doors.

“Is it him?” she hears one say.

“I don’t know, I can’t see!”

“Let him come in first, then we pounce him!”

“Can I see him change?”

“You’re all dumb!”

“I’m gonna bite ‘im first.”

Then they stop suddenly. She holds her breath.

“Hello?” a new voice asks. It’s him, the package. “I filled the cup thing, now what? Can I change out of these clothes yet?”

“Take a seat, we will be right in there,” one of the nakodiles says in a female voice. Jade can tell that particular nakodile is trying its very hardest not to say “nak.”

“Wait what is this? Why is it so dark in here?” he says, his voice rising in concern. Not yet, Jade.

“Can I eat him, yet?” she hears one whisper.

A chair squeaks forcefully inside. “Hey, no, get this shit off me! Ow! You bit me!”

“It’s him!” another shrieks, slipping into nakking. “I can taste it!”

Now!

* * *

 

“Ow! You bit me!” Dave yells, struggling against the binds that seemed to pop out of nowhere, attaching him fast to the annoyingly comfortable chair. He’s never doing this again. Fuck the sword, fuck Vriska for getting him to come here (pun definitely not intended!), and fuck this shady establishment! His life flashes before his eyes. His life wasn’t really all that great, but he had hoped to try to make it to age twenty-five safely. Maybe a girlfriend and a dog or something.

“It’s him!” “We can eat him!” “Hey, I called dibs first!” “Did not!” They all pounce on him at once, dully clawing and sharp teeth biting his arms and legs.

“Fuck off!” he yells even louder.

Suddenly, the door busts open, gunfire going off. The flashes of light reveal exactly what was in the room with him. They were the size of small children, bright red and looking a hell of a lot like tiny alligators. He tries to follow the movements of the person behind the gun, but they’re too fast. One at a time, sometimes two, the redigators go down. Finally, there are none left, and the person frees him.

“What the fuck! Literally! What the everloving—!”

“Run now, questions later,” a woman says with a muffled voice. Is she wearing a mask and goggles? Who does she think she is, Catwoman? Or since she has goggles, a steampunk version maybe? Or maybe she's a hardcore cosplayer? But what kind of cosplayer would carry real guns?

He nods in the darkness. “Okay. Good idea. Let me get my clothes first.”

“Already retrieved.” She hands him a plastic bag filled with his clothes, shoes, and socks… and his beloved sunglasses sitting right on top where he left them.

“Thanks, uh…”

“Jade.” She takes his hand in her larger one and leads him out of the dimly lit room.

As soon as they walk into the hallway, he notices her toned muscles in the cheap fluorescent lights. Her stature doesn’t really intimidate him, but how far she actually goes with the dog theme does surprise him. He takes an awkward breath, hesitating before saying, “Thanks. I’m Dave Strider.”

She sniffs the air. “They’re close. Change quickly.” He complies, trying not to stare as she takes her hair and curls it into a messy bun.

“Who’s close?” He starts to get a pounding headache. “Can you tell me what the hell is going on… here…” His vision comes in and out of focus, so he blinks to try to get his act together. He looks at his arms where the weird red gator thing bit him, and notices one bite mark with some broken skin turning a funny color. There wasn’t any blood, but the room was definitely spinning.

Then he blacks out.

* * *

“Shit!” Jade yells, catching him just in time before he hits the ground. The nakodile must have given him something to knock him out while they feast. Since she only stunned them, they’re going to be hungry when they wake up. It was necessary to protect Dave, but she didn’t want to kill them mercilessly. Speaking of which, he’s still in the medical garments, and she doesn’t feel like wasting any more time at this location. She needs to get to high ground and call her ride.

She shifts to hold him the gentlest way she knows how. She reaches under his knees and lifts him up. She makes sure she has his bag of clothes and carries him outside, charges her boots, and speeds away to find appropriate shelter. She scans the nearby buildings, settling on one that looks abandoned, and goes directly to the roof. Six stories is nothing her favorite equipment can’t handle, gliding alongside the building all the way to the top. She sees that the roof access door is missing and heads there, gingerly placing Dave just inside.

Removing her goggles and mask, she takes a deep breath and swallows to avoid the next few minutes of awkwardness. She removes his gown carefully. Oh gods, he is not wearing anything else. She has never seen a naked male, much less touched one. Gritting her teeth, she does her best to re-dress him. She puts the sunglasses in his lap and walks along the building’s ledge, checking the perimeter for enemy activity. So far, none yet. She activates the transmitter in her dog tag and looks up to the sky. Since she can’t see any stars in this city, she has decided not to come back. She smiles at the thought of being able to make her own choices after this.

The sound of him rustling awake makes her ears twitch. He mutters about clothes and potential embarrassment. She silently comes to terms with the need to explain that eventually. She puts the mask back on. What is taking that ship so long?

“Sup,” he says, finally catching up to her moderate pace.

“I’m checking the perimeter,” she answers, “the ship should be here soon and I don’t want anyone to follow us.”

“Wait, what?”

“I sent out a beacon via transmitter, and they are coming for us.”

“No, rewind, you said ‘ship’.”

“I did.”

“This is weird.” He then mutters, “What I wouldn’t give to be back home for once.”

“You can’t go home.”

“Excuse me?” he asks incredulously.

“It’s too dangerous for you there.”

“My roommates are hardly dangerous. In fact, I think I might be the dangerous one, considering that one of them convinced me to go to that shady sperm bank, and I might just go and kill them now.”

“Not going to happen, Dave,” she sighs.

“What is going to happen, then?”

“I’m not authorized to say.”

Dave stops. Jade keeps walking, scanning the streets with her eyes and straining her ears for uncommon sound effects. Besides the honking of horns and screeching of unfriendly people. “Will you ever tell me?”

“Someone will eventually. Just not me.” She stops to face him. “What I can tell you is that you’re needed elsewhere in the universe and a very important asset. A wanted man, you could say.”

“You lost me at 'universe’.”

“I don’t understand how. You’re not the only ones in the universe, and you’re wanted somewhere off-planet. Simple as that.”

“Okay, talking red gators I understand because that water tank in the lobby was probably tampered with, probably made me see shit--”

“They’re called Nakodiles, and they are lesser beings led by Salamanders, who form a symbiotic relationship.”

“Whatever you say. But I’m telling you, if NASA could have found life on Mars, we would have known already.”

“Mars is too hostile for any life besides bacterial.”

“See what I mean?”

“I see that your perspective is limited. Your solar system is one of millions. Do you think this ‘NASA’ could have discovered them all?”

“Maybe.”

Jade rolls her eyes. She continues her beat.

“What are you, then?”

“I’m human, mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“I am what is known as a 'splice.' At conception, they combine DNA with that of a human with that of a particular creature. For me, it was a canine.”

“Bullshit.”

“Bullshit?” She removes her mask and goggles and wiggles her ears with an amused smile. “How about now?”

Dave’s jaw drops. He is speechless. But only for a second. "Wh-what big ears you have."

She turns away, a sense of victory filling her. That sense dissipates as soon as she hears the familiar engine of her accomplices' ship descending from above. She stops to look up and says, “They’re here," and puts her mask and goggles back on.

“John’s not gonna believe this.”

And that’s when the ship suddenly exploded. Dave should have been wearing his sunglasses then, because the explosion was much bigger and brighter than he thought possible. He’s seen videos on the internet where small planes burst into flame and it was nowhere near on the scale of what he just saw. Debris starts to fall, and he feels Jade grab his middle, throws him over her shoulder, and yells at him to hang on.

“What’s going on?!” he screams over the commotion.

“We’ve been discovered,” she replies, her mouth right next to his ear. “Don’t let go and don’t look down.”

“Done.” He wonders why they’re heading away from the only exit off this rooftop. Unless… “Oh, no. No you are not. Jade? Jade!” She ignores him, actually accelerating to the edge of the building. “Oh my god, what the fuck!” She leaps off the side. He braces for an impact that doesn’t come. He can still feel the wind whipping around, but they’ve definitely been in the air longer than they should have. He opens his eyes and sees buildings and windows rushing by at impossible speeds. He could have sworn this woman was Usain Bolt.

Then he looks down. Big mistake. He sees that they are not only at least fifty feet in the air, but actually flying. Bright light emanates from the bottom of Jade’s boots. Rocket boots? Hell fucking yes. His fear of heights would be cured if he could get his hands on a pair of those for himself. He looks to Jade, who seems focused in what she’s doing, so he keeps his trap shut, letting her concentrate on getting away.

He looks in front of him, which is where they've already been, and sees four flying ships chasing them.

“The subways are a good place to lose a few airplanes,” he suggests.

“What?”

“Down that hole right there with the stairs!”

She nods and circles around to land. She deactivates her boots a few feet up and they drop down to the staircase, running the rest of the way down. They dodge people left and right, getting on the first train that arrives into the station. The doors close and they are on their way to somewhere. Dave looks around and determines that they’re going uptown. Shouldn’t be any aliens there, right?

Jade then does something strange. She pulls him close, smelling at his head, then his neck. Being extremely ticklish, he tries to jerk away, turning red unwillingly. “Whoa, lady, we just met, and now you’re smelling me?” When she lets him go, he looks around to see some people staring.

She looks offended. “If we’re going to be on our own, I need to be able to find you just in case we are separated. This city doesn’t exactly have a shortage of people. To confuse you by, I mean.”

“So… you’re getting my scent?”

“Precisely.”

“That is so fucking weird.”

* * *

If she wasn’t offended before, she is now. For good measure, she takes one more whiff and has enough for a ten mile radius. It’s not optimal, but it will work for now. She will try to get more later.

But now what?

She has no ride, no resources, and no money. What’s a splice to do?

A splice is to do what they are told. She’s always wanted to lead but never got the chance because of what she was. However, now she has an opportunity, and the anticipation of freedom helps her come up with a plan. She’s heard of a beekeeper troll living a few miles out from the city limits. She could ask him for help. Hopefully he still has contact with someone off-planet. Perhaps they would know a low profile taxi service.

“We’re going to a friend for now,” she tells Dave, who is looking at a map, “at least until we can find another ship willing to give us a ride.” The term “friend” is a stretch, but she doesn’t think she has much of a choice at this point. Pirates would be the best bet, since they can fly under the radar and are notoriously fast, but she doesn’t want to always be looking over her shoulder for fear of betrayal or being sold out.

“So who are they, an alien?” Dave asks.

“Yeah. But he is humanoid, so not extremely different.”

“So where’s he from?”

“A socially hostile planet called ‘Alternia,’ roughly a parsec from here. Only the strong survive there.”

“What about the guys chasing us? Please tell me they were from Jupiter or something. Being attacked by literally Jupiter would be the best thing, honestly.”

Her face turns grave. “You do not want to be attacked by Jupiter. They’re even worse than the Alternians.” She never wants to return to that horrid place.

He slouches, mumbling, “Sorry.”

 


	2. Karkat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet Karkat. What's with the bees? Or should I say, "BEE2"?!!?

Dave is the only one who knows how to operate a car, so he hotwires a truck similar to John’s and wham bam thank you ma’am, they're off after only an hour of frustration. Jade said that the reason they couldn’t just use her boots was because they use solar power to charge and she’d already used them almost all night. They didn’t talk very much on the trip besides Jade giving directions, but Dave was itching to ask why the heck Jupiter was populated while Mars remained hostile, but he gets the vibe that she's not that inclined on sharing, so he doesn't ask.

Dawn breaks by the time they get to a small farmhouse two hours outside the city, surrounded by acres of unattended cotton and hundreds of flowers. A distinct buzzing can be heard in the distance. At least, Dave hopes it’s in the distance. He can’t stand bees. They’re always following him and he has no idea why. They’ve never stung him, but he’s always afraid that they will one of these days.

“It can't be,” Jade mumbles when she gets out of the front seat.

“What?” Dave asks, getting out of the driver’s seat, staring at the house. Now that he’s taking a closer look, the house is in terrible shape. Someone’s on the front steps, leaning against the banister and reading a thick book. He’s a little shorter than Dave, and Dave is average height at best. The person wearing a huge-ass straw sun hat and a long sleeved shirt. The last time Dave checked, it was July, and they are in Texas.

“Karkat, is that you?” Jade calls out to the guy.

The person looks up and Dave sees that this “Karkat” has gray skin. What else is different? Does Dave even want to know?

“Oh, fuck me,” Karkat exasperates just loud enough for Dave to hear. “This is not what I wanted to do today.”

“Is that how you’re going to treat me after I saved your ass from space death?” She crosses her arms, narrowing her eyes. Dave notices that Jade’s ears move even though her face doesn’t.

“No, you’re right, you’re right,” Karkat says, leaning away from the banister to dust himself off. He walks to the door and opens it up for then. “By all means, welcome to our abode, where the stingbeasts are plentiful and the honey is potent. I’ll tell Sollux you’re here.” Karkat is eyeing Dave weirdly and he doesn’t like it.

“What’s a stingbeast now?” Dave asks, waving away some bees. Wait.

“Just smile and nod,” Jade explains quietly, “Trolls have synonymous names for pretty much everything you can think of. They also speak perfect English, except that their letters are different.”

“Do all aliens speak perfect English?” That’s a stretch, even with all the crappy alien movies he has seen in his lifetime.

Jade ignores him. He catches himself watching her go and shakes his head to snap out of it. He has this terrible habit of admiring people that are awesome via staring, which is creepy in basically every society. Following her into the wooden house, he realizes is Karkat doing the same to him.

“What?”

Karkat harrumphs. “You’re a weird one.”

It’s Dave’s turn to eye him suspiciously. “S’nothing wrong with being weird.”

“It is if you--never mind.”

Dave tisks and goes inside. “What the fuck?” There are beehives everywhere: in the walls, on the ground, everywhere but those little beehives that beekeepers have. What the shit is this place?

“Take it all in,” Karkat drawls sarcastically, “and watch your step, the little fuckers are everywhere. Getting stung on the bottom of your foot is more fun than food poisoning in a space suit and having all of its functions fail at the same time so all of that bile has nowhere to go but back down your esophagus and thus starting the cycle all over again.”

Dave has never been in a space suit, nor has he had the pleasure of that experience Karkat had described, but he looks at the ground anyway. Not a bee to be seen.

“So, what did you do this time?” Karkat asks Jade. They’re now sitting at a table together in the kitchen. Dave wants to sit but doesn’t find a chair, so he just leans up against a wall. He feels something sticky and removes his hand immediately, not risking even a glance.

“Nothing that I can’t handle,” she answers, “but my rental crew has been killed and I don’t know what to do.” Clenching her teeth, Jade side-glances at Dave, then continues. “I have a package to deliver to Lopan.”

Karkat simply balks at her. “Lopan? Who would want something from all the way out there?”

“All I know is that he,” Jade gestured with her head to Dave, “is what I am supposed to deliver.”

Karkat squints. “Human trafficking is against intergalactic law. What have I told you about that shit!? If it’s illegal, don’t fucking take the bounty, it's as simply as that.”

“It’s not trafficking, I promise! I was told it was a rescue mission.” Jade looks pretty damn sure about that. Dave is still reeling from the events a few hours ago, and doesn’t think that being kidnapped on any level, even by intense canine women, is legal in any way.

Karkat gets up silently, moves behind Jade, and slaps her upside the head.

“Ow!” Jade yells, whipping around to face him, gritted teeth, hands balled into fists, and muscles flexed. She looks about ready to knock him out.

“You moron! You can’t just go around trusting people about that!”

“Well, you try being spliced with a creature known for their loyalty! Besides,” Jade pulls out a photo and holds it in front of Karkat, “this is the only photo they gave me and I have to say that it is a perfect match!”

Karkat snatches the photo and takes a good look at it. “Are you fucking kidding me? Are you trying to tell me that he is some royal sauce-guzzling asshat that died hundreds of years ago?”

“Say what now?” Dave interjects.

“She’s convinced you’re some prince of the universe,” Karkat translates, giving Dave an annoyed look.

“The resemblance is uncanny,” Jade says.

“Lemme see that,” Dave says, reaching for it. Karkat hands it over. What Dave sees is so incredibly unbelievable, it can only be seen in science fiction. The photo depicts a guy that looks like Dave, down to the same shade of dark red eyes and hairstyle (sans sunglasses), even the fucking freckles, not just a photoshopped picture of any time or place that he remembers, in a weird outfit standing in front of some kind of gold-looking statue… surrounded by those infernal nakodiles. Posing with them. The guy in the picture looks like he owns them, or at least collaborates with them peacefully. “This is obviously photoshop.”

“I assure you, it's not,” Jade says, looking like she's not quite sure what photoshop is. "My client gave it to me himself."

"Have you ever been thung by a bee?" an unfamiliar voice says out of nowhere. Dave looks behind him to see another alien like Karkat standing there, except that he has horns on top of his head. Two pairs, to be exact, small and curved upward and pointy. "Karkat, take off that hat, you look ridiculousth."

"Fine," Karkat says, taking it off. That officially proves trolls have horns, in addition to the grey skin. Karkat's aren't as pointy as this new troll's though. How is Dave getting used to this already? Unreal. "Answer the question, Dave."

Dave swallows uncomfortably. "No, but they follow me around." As soon as he says that, he buzzing gets considerably louder, and a lot more bees show up, filling the room. "Oh my god, make it stop," he says, his voice rising into a mild panic.

"They won't hurt you," The new troll says, trying to reassure Dave. "Relakth."

He tries to relax, making deep breathing gestures he saw John do with his yoga DVD once. When he did that, the small swarm of bees moved with his hands. Unconvinced, he tries it again, and they move again. He tries something different, bringing his hands together with fingers spread, and the bees move as a unit, forming into a ball.

"Sick," he mutters with unintended glee. He gets flashbacks to that Fantasia movie and wonders if he can do the same thing Mickey Mouse did with the pointing and the magic. Is this magic? Science? An elaborate hallucination? He has no idea.

"Well, would you look at that," Karkat says, "a royal sauce-guzzling asshat."

* * *

 

Karkat pulls Jade aside by her arm. "You're actually getting paid for this, right?" he asks, gesturing at Dave.

"I was guaranteed freedom," Jade answers. The wrinkles between Karkat's eyebrows become even deeper. "I know you're skeptical, but I have a really good feeling that this will work in my favor."

Karkat sighs his usual tired sigh. "Listen. This is risky. The more you go gallivanting through space, the bigger chance you have at getting caught and shipping all three of us back to Jupiter. Are you sure your client or whatever is powerful enough to guarantee you what he has promised?"

Jade purses her lips, not wanting to reveal that the one that hired her is actually of the royal family. "Positive."

"Alright," he says. "I trust you. I have no choice, but I trust you. But if you get caught, I don't think I can come rescue you, got it?" Jade nods. "Good. Now I have some favors to follow up on, so if you'd kindly get out of the way, I could do my business."

Jade smiles, threatening to give Karkat a hug around his neck. He dodges her lazily. "Thank you, Karkat."

"Yeah, yeah." He leaves.

She turns to Dave, who has been entirely distracted by the bees the whole time. Good. He doesn't need to see her as weak, just trustworthy. "Dave, let's take this outside," she says, patting him on the shoulder.

"Sure, yeah," he says, not paying attention.

She steps outside the back door first, taking a deep breath through her nose. She smells an odd metal alloy that wasn't there before, then the smell of burning jet fuel. They're here.

"Hey Jade, look what I can do—"

"Stay put," she interrupts him, keeping him inside by putting her arm in his way. She looks down at him and says in a hushed tone, "I'll be back."

The bees disperse. "Why?"

"I'm going to check something."

Dave crosses his arms. "Don't I have the right to know? Besides, you're the one who said to take this bee shit outside."

"Fine," she sighs, "follow me and get killed."

He pauses, then says, "Fair point. I'm going to stay here."

She darts into the overgrown cotton field, finding that the twigs were coarse and mangled. If anyone were out here hiding, they'd be along a pathway. She sniffs the air and detects one just a few feet in front of her, in the thick of it. She’d recognize that feline splice anywhere. She crouches even lower, listening and waiting to pounce.

* * *

 

“So can you tell me more about who that guy in the photo is?” Dave asks Karkat.

“Oh, are you done playing house with the bees now?” Karkat answers bitterly.

“Geez, I didn’t know you were such a sour grape.”

“Do you want to know or not?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Follow me.” Karkat waves Dave into a room by the front door and unplugs what looks like a tablet that’s been to hell and back. Karkat taps it, but nothing happens. He hits the side with his palm and it turns on, displaying a three-dimensional image of what looks like planet earth. “Okay, now you think humans originated on earth, right?” Dave nods. “Wrong! It was more like a colony created for some experiment by some royal douchebags.” Karkat taps the screen some more and the image changes to a system of eight planets orbiting around each other. “You see, these eight planets are where everything started. You have two royal families living in harmony, but then one family decides that they are the pure ones and defeats the other family, and guess which one the guy in the photo belonged to?”

“The one they defeated?” Dave guesses. He hates guessing. He can tell that Karkat hates explaining it, since he’s doing it in such a resentful tone.

“Do I have to explain everything? Of course I do. You're a primitive grub. But no, he's a part of the family that took over. Took them by surprise, that’s what I was taught. In any case, that was about a hundred and thirty centuries ago. The rulers of those defeated planets died, and now the ones ruling the victorious planets are hunting you down for their own musclebeastshit reasons.”

Dave's not even going to ask what that last part meant.

"I don’t know entirely the reason why, but I can only infer that they want you because--” Mid-sentence, the beat up tablet bursts into flames in Karkat’s hands. “Goddammit!” he yells as he smashes it to the floor and stomps it out with his foot. “Fucking piece of shit holoscreen! I will send you to electronic hell!”

Dave’s phone rings. Shit, he forgot he even had that. He can tell that Karkat needs some privacy and goes out to the front porch. The caller ID says “Da Boss Man.”

“Sup, John?”

“Do you have any idea what time it is?!” John screeches. His voice breaks, but that could just be the phone speakers blowing out.

Dave holds his phone out to see the clock on it. Nine oh-five. He’s late by five minutes. Which never happens. If Dave is anything, he's on time. “Hey, sorry, I have to go for a few days, you think you can handle the business by yourself?”

“Did you get arrested? I swear if you did, then our business is fucked! No one will hire us and all that hard work goes down the tubes!”

“No, I didn’t get arrested. I have a friend who’s going through some stuff, and she needs me.”

“Wait, she?” John sounds both incredulous and intrigued. “Fine, I’ll just get Vriska to help. Good luck!”

“Thanks, man.” Dave’s phone beeps, then it dies in his hand. “Well, then.” He looks up to see a girl sitting on the banister, crouching like a cat. She even has a tail that sways left to right. She’s wearing a blue hat with a set of horns that look like cat ears sticking out of them. She reminds him of Karkat, with the horns and the gray skin, only feline and more effeminate. He wonders if anyone else lives with Karkat and Sollux. She slinks off and lands gracefully on the wooden deck, making nary a sound. Her clothes are somewhat ripped, he notices, like she has been in many battles.

She smiles, proud of herself.

“Hey, Karkat?” Dave calls out.

“What?” Karkat answers. Dave can hear him padding over.

“Does anyone else live here besides you and Sollux?”

“No, why?” The steps turn into running and Karkat arrives. He takes one look at her and says, “And the world continues to fuck me over.”

“Hi, Karkitty,” the girl says in a sweet voice, waving.

Karkat grits his teeth. “You know I hate that na—”

She suddenly rushes Karkat and punches him in the face, knocking him out instantly. He hits the ground with a dull thunk. “I remember.” She turns to Dave. “Come quietly and I purromise not to be too rough with you.”

“I’m going to have to say no,” Dave says.

And before he can even consider using the bees as a means of defense, they last thing he sees is that blue hat coming right for him.

* * *

 

Jade has been playing this game of chicken with the cat troll for a solid minute now. She’s getting frustrated and she still hasn’t found both of them yet. Jade decides to end it and leaps through the bristles, planning to tackle the troll and knock her out before she can get to the house.

Instead, the other troll dodges Jade and scoots back, and then hisses at her. Crap, it’s only Meulin.

“I tire of this game of cat and mouse,” Jade says.

“Meulin thinks you should look behind you,” Meulin says a little too loudly.

Jade knows not to fall for that one and springs at Meulin. Jade catches her off guard and they roll into the unkempt tangle of bushes and weeds. Meulin manages to pin Jade down, but only temporarily as it would seem, as Jade grabs Meulin’s shoulders, squeezing her much smaller frame. Meulin slips out of the hold, rolling to assume a position on all fours. She bares her teeth and hisses again.

Jade scrambles up on one knee and grabs a fistful of dirt on the way. In one swift motion, she throws it in Meulin’s face and lunges at her. The women claw at each other, Meulin using actual, literal claws she made herself. Jade doesn’t see them until too late, Meulin inflicts a relatively deep three-line gash on Jade’s left side. That infuriates Jade, and she takes hold of Meulin’s hair in her fist and slams the other woman to the ground, face up.

Jade hears a gunshot and turns to see a plume of green smoke sailing into the sky. Meulin notices it, too.

“You should have brought a partner,” Meulin taunts, kicking Jade off.

“Oof!” Jade grunts, landing embarrassingly on her backside. She takes off after Meulin, who then boards a small ship hiding in the trees bordering the thick cotton fields. It’s small enough to be operated by two people, but large enough to have a significant cargo bay that Jade can easily hide in. They've captured Dave! There goes Jade’s freedom. She’ll think of something.

They strap him into one of the emergency seats next to the door, and she waits until it starts to close before jumping inside herself. She has only sixty seconds to get herself strapped in before they go into hyperspace through a portal, instantly transporting them across the universe to Lotak. She checks on Dave to make sure he still draws breath, then sighs with relief. He doesn't appear to be injured. She lightly brushes his bangs away, pats his shoulder, then settles into the seat next to him for takeoff. She checks on her wound, which is already closing up thanks to multiple scientific experiments to her person in her youth. There's no guarantee her injuries aren't infected, but it's a chance she has to take. She can't lose this chance. Not again.

She feels the ship leaving earth’s gravitational pull, and a few minutes later, the ship slows down. It’s still en route, so they must be close to their destination, if not there already. As soon as the ship jolts, she knows that they have entered Lotak's atmosphere. It's extremely toxic sometimes, so Jade puts on her mask and goggles and activates oxygen mode, which effectively seals off any openings, making it airtight, just in case. She risks a peek out of the cockpit window and sees the palace. In her research before the mission, she studied every inch of that place and the terrain around it. She formulates a plan to get him back and somehow get her freedom if it's not too late. They get close and she jettisons herself through the door she came through.

As she falls, she kicks on her boots, now fully charged, and glides to the dry, dusty ground.


	3. Dirk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet one of the complacency siblings. (this chapter is shorter so I'll update probably Thursday)  
> EDIT: it is now Friday and I promise to update today

Dave wakes up to a sudden rush of air and panicked screeching. He's strapped into a chair, in what looks like a cargo bay from one of those army movies with straps and optional places to sit. The pod bay door is open, and the air is thick and hazy. He's about to conk out again when the door closes, the blue-hat girl rushing to his aid. He takes a deep breath when it does close, his lungs desperate for air.

"Damn!" She locks the hatch and returns to the cockpit. "Meulin, do you think anyone saw that?"

Meulin shakes her head, then moves her hands like she’s speaking sign language.

"Do you think it was Jade?" the blue hat troll says while signing.

Meulin shrugs, signing something else and ending it with what looks like a question mark.

“If we do, we risk our freedom and the bounty." Bounty? What bounty? All Jade gets is her freedom. How much are people paying for him, anyway? That line makes him feel even more awkward. A normal guy with no particular talents, basically a loser, whisked away to other worlds.

The radio spouts some ship landing lingo as they get closer to the ground. Dave gives up on trying to watch through the cockpit window. It’s not like he can see outside anyway. He wonders how he got himself into this mess. He can hardly blame Vriska, since it was his own choice that he even went to a sperm bank in the first place. He could have chosen a different one, but no, he had to choose that one. Even then, would they have found him sooner or later if he didn’t go to that one in particular? Would it have mattered where he went at all? And would Jade have found him and rescued him from being eaten? He sighs exasperatedly, trying to unfasten himself to no avail.

The ship lands smoothly, with hardly a bump. Too late to run. They both get out of their seats and check on Dave and pause, staring at the seat next to him. He follows their gaze and sees blood. Was he bleeding? Was Jade really here? She'll be fine... he hopes.

Meulin turns to her partner and signs in a panic.

“Get ahold of yourself!” she says, shaking Meulin by her shoulders. While signing, she says, “Keep it quiet and we’ll be free, okay?” Meulin nods and they hug. Dave feels a pang in his chest cavity. After all, they are people after all, er, trolls.

They turn to Dave and outfit him with a gas mask type thing, but sleek and futuristic instead of bulky like in the WWI movies. The air must be unbreathable. Again, why is Mars not inhabited if it's so hostile?! The trolls help each other with their masks and unstrap him. They open the pod bay door, leading him to it, and he watches with uncertainty as it lowers itself to the ground.

Meulin holds him back while the other one steps off. She speaks with someone in another language. She is handed a box before she turns and signals Meulin, who leads him off the ship towards an older blond guy in weird-looking orange robes and a gas mask with flames on it and pointed anime glasses. Is that where they come from? Aliens? The man waves them away and Dave is free at last. Well, surrounded by guards but who’s counting them?

The planet itself is pretty dark, buildings and spires for miles and miles, and what looks like plumes of smoke coming from every one of them. Every so often, lightning would flash out of the smoke and make Dave blink. It might be the mask, but everything looks green to him.

The walking creamsicle offers a hand to Dave, like a handshake, which he doesn’t take. The orange guy shrugs and turns to the open doors about thirty feet down the path they are standing on. He is followed by a portion of the guards, and the other portion nudges Dave to follow. As soon as they get inside, everyone removes the masks.

“Finally,” Mr. Sunkist says, facing Dave, “we meet again.” His blond hair sticks up in the back, not really matching his withered face. He looks like a guy in his early fifties tried a teenager’s hairstyle and it’s not working out at all for him. His eyes also match his outfit. Or is it the other way around?

“I have no idea who you are,” Dave says, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“My apologies.” He holds a hand out to his left, and a servant of some kind brings him another pair of pointed lenses. “My name is Dirk, and I am the prince of this planet. Welcome to Lotak, brother.” At that, he bows slightly, hands together at his pelvis. Dave tries the same half-heartedly.

“Look, no offense, but I'm not your brother. You basically kidnapped me.”

“I did not kidnap you, I am taking you home, with a little detour of course. But first and foremost, those rags need to be incinerated or worse.”

“What’s wrong with my clothes?” Dave got them from a bargain bin, so he guesses it doesn’t really matter. But on the other hand, he's wearing one of his favorite shirts. It's a baseball shirt, and Vriska never hesitates to prod that he never even plays baseball.

Dirk looks stoic, but he obviously has an offended expression behind those glasses. Dave would know after hiding behind sunglasses all of his life. "Unfortunately, that attire is inappropriate in my court," Dirk says, gesturing to everyone else. Dave notices that even the guards have an air of regality.

"Fine, I'll let you dress me up," Dave groans. "But if you put me in a dress, so help me I will beat your ass, old man."

Dirk scoffs, amused. "Call me 'Bro.'"

Dave rolls his eyes.

* * *

Jade uses the poison alert to her advantage. No one in their right minds wander the streets of this city in the midst of a poison storm. Unless they have gas masks, which is usually reserved for the middle class and higher. The poor live too far underground to need them, according to her research, but she feels that there's more to it than that. She scales the palace with caution, avoiding the plentiful windows and the guards by them.

She follows Dave's scent, and discovers he is in the regeneration chambers. In her mind, she charts a path and readies the tiny daggers. She has to be careful with them, for they are laced with a knockout serum, and are in low supply. She figures that when she runs out, she will have to take on the guards one by one to both avoid detection and unnecessary deaths.

Taking a deep breath, she sallies forth.

* * *

 "Why the hell are you taking a bath right in front of me?" Dave asks, a hand over his eyes. One thing he would not want to see is an old man's junk. The extra fabric in the red robes' sleeves that Dirk gave him make an excellent curtain as well.

"I told you I would show you the secrets to our nobility and here we are," Dirk deadpans.

Dave hears soft splashing. Dirk must be getting into the ridiculously large bathtub filled with a thick liquid that isn't quite water and has a purple tint. Or was it the bath itself? Dave doesn't remember.

He then hears Dirk emerging from the liquid. "Behold, brother," a strange voice says. Dave risks a gander. What he sees is impossible to say the least.

"Holy fuck," Dave mutters. He gulps, not sure whether to feel impressed or dirty while staring at his genetic brother. Dirk is not an old man anymore. He looks about Dave's age, but with more toned muscles. The only reason he knows for sure defined that it is Dirk is the shade of his hair and the fact that he was still wearing his sunglasses as he entered the bath.

"I'm not an exhibitionist, but you were going to find out anyway."

"How though?" Dave wants to know, but he doesn't want to know, but at the same time, he really wants to know.

"This is a special kind of liquid," Dirk says, "it is very expensive, but utterly worth it. I have been performing this quasi-ritual every thirty years to preserve my youth. We named it 'Veil.'" Servants came from all sides to dress him in fresh and different robes, still in that shade of orange soda.

"So only the rich and famous can do this? Doesn't sit right with me."

"Then why did my long-dead brother do it for so long? You two are so similar, you might as well be the same person."

Dave's mouth forms into a hard line. "I'm not your brother."

"Obviously not. It's nature versus nurture. He was raised to not know any other way to live, and you were born you. No offense."

Offense was definitely taken.

"He lived in the same fashion for over ninety centuries. I don't see why he stopped."

"Maybe he was just tired of living like a youth-obsessed douchewad. Thousands of years of life has to take a toll on someone's mind psychologically or something."

"All I know is that he died tragically." He waves the servants out of the room. As soon as they are alone, Dirk locks the door and leads Dave to the deck overlooking the city. It's domed and scratched, as if it withstood assassination attempts. "Rumors say that our sister Rose had something to do with it."

"Who's Rose? And how many siblings do you have?" Dave remembers there were eight planets, but beyond that, he can't recall what Karkat said specifically about the families themselves.

"We have two other sisters. Roxy is fairly harmless. She does have her own plans, but they stay mainly on her own planet. Rose on the other hand, rivals even my genius."

Before Dave can ask about the other families or the sisters he allegedly has, he hears thudding outside the room. It sounds like bodies are being dropped.

"What the hell?" Dave mutters. He hopes it's Jade coming to rescue him from this weird room and his weird alleged brother.

"Watch the fucking language in my presence," Dirk responds.

The door opens and like an answer to his prayers, Jade enters, sweating and panting, mask and goggles and rocket boots and everything. He has never been so attracted to such a woman in his life and his face flushes for it. She straightens herself and approaches, removing her mask in the process.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, young bounty hunter?" Dirk asks.

"I've come to collect a package, your grace," she answers, bowing slightly. "He was stolen from my care, and with all due respect, I found him before your bounty hunters did and I deserve to bring him to my client." Jade's ears betray her demeanor. They were tilted slightly back, indicating timidity. Dave wonders if Dirk picks up on that, too.

* * *

 Jade was positive this was not going to work. She had two options: negotiate with the prince and seek passage to Lopan with Dave, or knock him out and take him by force. The latter seems more likely. She has one blade left to do the job. If he calls for help, no one within fifty feet will hear. She made sure of that much on the way here.

"Alright," the prince says simply.

"Wait, what?" Dave says, shocked.

"You may take him after you're fed," the prince repeats. "Even you, Jade. Splice or not, a friend of my brother is a friend of mine."

"Why?" Dave asks.

"You know why, it's written all over your face."

Now Jade is confused. She didn’t expect such a gesture. Dave starts sputtering defensively. Jade's stomach rumbles. She hasn't eaten all day and the work it took to get to this room used the rest of her energy.

“Thank you, your grace, for your kindness,” Jade says, bowing again. “All we require is safe passage to Lopan.”

“Of course you will,” the prince says, looking down his nose at her. At least, it feels that way to her. He gestures for both guests to follow as he brushes past Jade to the massive door. “I will see what I can do.”

They both follow the prince out of the room, hopefully to where he has promised.

* * *

 “Roxy, please,” Dirk says to the large video display in the command center of his palace, “I know you hired a bounty hunter to pick up our brother from earth.”

“Dirk, please,” she says in a mocking tone, “you’re being paranoid! I would never challenge you!”

“Stop lying and tell me what you plan on doing with him.”

Roxy pouts. “Have you so little faith in your dear sister?” Dirk just stares at her. “Fiiiiiiine, I hired one. But only because you hired bounty hunters first. I had to make sure you weren’t doing anything weird to him, like giving him up to Rose or something!”

Dirk hesitated before answering, “As long as you aren’t doing the same, then we are on the same page.”

“You did do something weird!” She points to him with one accusatory finger.

Dirk sighs. “I did no such thing. I was completely appropriate this time.”

“Stop lying and tell me what you told him.”

“All I did was try to convince him to join the royal family again. I also told him about the rejuvenation process.”

“Did you inform him of where Veil comes from? What about his inheritance?” she asks nervously.

“I was reserving that job for you. You always seem to love stealing thunder, so I decided to just give the task to you.”

Roxy makes a disgusted face. “Now that I have to, I don’t want to.”

“Too late. They are already en route to Lopan as we speak.”

“Dirk! You give me too little time to prepare!”

“You’re in full makeup, you should be fine.”

“But this is our brother! Returned from the realms of the shadow of death!” Sonic booms can be heard on her end of the video.

“Sounds like they have arrived. I will leave you to your preparations.”

“Wait! Dirk, you—!” He shuts off the feed, retreating to his private chambers for the evening. The forecast calls for another gas storm, so all will be calm tonight.

 


	4. Roxy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we learn things about people. A lot of things.

“Captain, a word?” Jade says, approaching the captain. Her ship is well known for its durability, and has infamously been used for top-secret missions, usually between the Alpha-Beta planets. Nobody really knows what missions they accomplish, so the general public likes to speculate wildly.

"Yes, Jade?" she asks, turning away from her station in the middle of the ship's bridge. The captain herself is a cherub, a solitary species, usually keeping to their own until mating, for reasons of mass destruction. Not an option for either splicing nor harvesting, and not because of Princess Roxy's official decree of protection. They kind of look like skeletons with with green skin stretched over them, which strikes fear into the hearts of many. For reasons unknown, Calliope herself was different. She is more social and rumor has it that she is friends with said princess.

"I wanted to thank you again for taking us to Lopan."

Sweetly, Calliope smiles without showing her teeth. "It's nothing, I volunteered! While you’re on my ship, you are but a welcome guest. But please pardon me, I must return to my duties. It was nice to finally meet you, though, Jade." She holds out her clawed hand.

Jade carefully returns the handshake and rushes hurriedly to the lift, away from the front viewing windows. Since the ship also uses portal technology, they will get to Lopan in a matter of minutes instead of hours.

She wants to head down to the cargo hold for the journey, but on the way, Dave joins her in the lift. He changed his ornate red attire to a combination of the clothes he brought from earth and whatever they could find in the ship’s storage; he had replaced everything except for his socks, undershirt, and sunglasses. She can smell them still, and it's almost atrocious, but she's getting used to the aroma. He draws a breath, probably in surprise when he realizes she's there.

"Sup?" he says stiffly.

"It's been a long day," she says, "I'm just headed to the cargo hold before we land."

"Cool." He rocks back and forth on his heels, hands in his pockets and humming. "So uh, are you, um... Do you have a significant other? You know, someone to go back home to?"

Jade blinks. "No, not really. I mean, there’s Karkat, but we don’t live together anymore."

"Okay." He looks elated somehow. He waits until the doors open to the cargo bay and they step out and make sure nobody else is around to hear them before speaking again. "Hey, listen, I just wanted to let you know that you're pretty. Awesome! Pretty awesome. Fuck, that’s not what I wanted to say."

Jade has a feeling that she knows what’s going on now. “Dave, I—”

“I have this terrible tendency to be really attracted to people that are way out of my league, and I just wanted to say that you’re no exception to that.”

Jade knows what he's trying to say, but all she can come up with for a response is, “I don’t understand how.”

Dave knits his eyebrows together. “What?”

She clears her throat awkwardly. “What I mean is that you’re royalty, and I’m only a splice. I don’t know if you have people like me on your planet, but on every other, we’re lower than those who are not spliced.”

“So?”

“I’ll put it this way: I’m literally part _dog_.”

“I love dogs! All animals, but dogs especially. Always have. Loyal. And cute. With their… tails and… ears and stuff... ” he trails off.

“I have to go,” Jade says, turning back to the lift quickly. She hears his footsteps chasing after her, but her strides are longer, and she gets there before he does. She tries not to slam down the button to close the doors. All her life, she’s been either ignored or chastised, Karkat being the first to actually care about her well-being. Since he got her and Sollux off Jupiter, Karkat had been the only one since. First there's the captain, and now Dave? Who’s next, the Alternian empress?! She lets out a frustrated groan and waits for the doors to open again.

It turns out she didn’t even choose a destination, and the doors open right back to the cargo bay. Dave stands right in front of the doors, visually distraught until he notices her, then straightens up and waves, lips pursed.

“Hey,” he says, monotone.

Without a word, she manages to actually press a random button to a random deck. The doors close and the lift starts moving up, and she tries not to think about what just happened, listening to the flurry of excuses going through her mind that oppose the idea of actually being with someone. She doesn’t pay attention to where she exactly she wanders, but by the time they reach Lopan’s landing pad, she has convinced herself that after all of this, she might never see him again. And she is okay with that.

* * *

 After Jade leaves for the second time, Dave facepalms. If all the people in the universe were to facepalm, they’d be doing it now after the fiasco that just happened.

Dejected and rejected, he laces his fingers through his hair and tugs at it, letting out an aggravated moan.

Why did he say that? Of all the things to say, “I love dogs” was the best he could come up with? She’s probably been bullied for that shit, being a splice and everything. But she wears a dog mask, maybe she embraces it? At least, she looks like she does, using the dog abilities to her advantage. Either way, he’s frustrated that he said it and now wants to crawl into a hole and never come out.

He finally works up the nerve to go back to civilization, staggering when the ship shakes suddenly. The same thing happened right before the cat spliced trolls landed on Lotak, so it’s probably a normal thing that happens on a normal ship entering a normal planet’s atmosphere. He still can’t get used to this stuff being a normal thing.

A familiar face draws him to her. The ship has landed, but all he wants to do is get over the awkwardness. Before he can say anything, they are whisked back to the cargo bay to disembark.

Again, they are greeted by a royal and plentiful guards lining the path to the palace. This time, every building is a rustic orange pyramid and the atmosphere every color you could imagine all at the same time, like oil floating in a puddle. The pyramids are dotted with buildings and paths connecting them, for as far as he can see.

The royal herself is clad in pink, just as regal as Dirk’s strange outfit. She looks as if she’s excited to see Dave again, but goes straight for Jade first, holding her hands up between them, like some sort of prodigal son gesture.

“Jade!” she calls out. “Thank you for bringing my brother to visit!”

“I was simply performing my duty as a bounty hunter,” Jade responds coolly, bowing as politely as she did with Dirk. Dave notices her lips curve slightly. So far, this royal is the only one Jade seems to actually enjoy. He can’t help but remember what Dirk said about their sisters. Which one is this one, he wonders?

“Oh, we must have a party!” the woman announces. She quickly finds Dave and approaches him, too. “You must be my brother, I’d recognize those stoic features anywhere!” Then she hugs him around his upper arms, making it hard to hug her back. Not that he didn't want to, he’s just not that huggy of a person. “It’s like you never died!”

Captain Calliope clears her throat. “Your majesty,” she says, getting the princess’s attention.

“Oh, where are my manners?” She lets go of Dave. “I haven’t introduced myself! I am Princess Roxy. Welcome to Lopan!” Roxy gestures with her arms wide. “Come inside, we have much to discuss.” She winks at Dave, who just swallows uncomfortably at the gesture.

An hour later, he is yet again the royal dress-up doll.

"You look so amazining in black, my drear brother!" the blonde exclaims, clasping her hands together. Something's off, but he can't seem to put his finger on it. Then he smells the alcohol on her breath and understands everything. He mumbles a thanks in response, still kind of bitter over them destroying his favorite shirt.

* * *

 At dinner, the entire crew is treated to a large feast. Jade feels that it’s unnecessary since Prince Dirk had fed them a few short hours ago. She decides to fill a small plate with a moderate meal anyway, so not to be rude. A few strangers join the table, so she sits herself away from them and more towards the front where the royals are sitting. She is welcomed there too, and Jade is starting to get used to being treated like she belongs. She smiles more, which is what she decides she likes the most about hanging out with people she cares about.

At the front of the table, Dave and Roxy are talking about the brief history of his previous incarnation’s life.

“He could do what now?” Dave asks.

“He did this thing called ‘flash-steppin.’ It was an amazing thing ta watch. Dirk had taught him and they perfkected the moves over centuries.” To Jade, Roxy sounds drunk.

“And you said it was like teleporting but with running real fast? That is seriously cool.”

“They thought so. Rose and I mainly stuck to indoor activities such as readin', writin', an' sciencin'.”

Neither of them have even touched their food. Just staring at them not eating makes Jade want to eat all the more. She continues to eat while using her enhanced hearing to listen in. It's not like she can help having such abilities. She can't necessarily tune out Roxy's boisterous voice, either.

They speak of many subjects rapid fire, but then one comes up that makes Jade nearly choke on her food. "Have ya ever thought a marriage?"

Dave has the same reaction as he sips from a tall champagne glass. He glances at Jade, their eyes meet briefly, then she quickly turns away, caught. She doesn't look again until he continues. "Nope, why?"

Roxy gives him a knowing look. "Hmm." Then she flicks her eyes to Jade and back. "Well, if ya ever wanna consider it, I may have a few suggections. Rather, one."

"Really?" Dave sounds uninterested, resuming his glass of fizz.

"Myself, of course."

Dave chokes on his drink for a second time. "What?" he asks between coughs.

Roxy slaps him hard on the back. "I'm kidding!" she laughs. "You're too young for me anyway." She winks at him again, sipping her own clear fizzy swill. Jade understands everything now.

She excuses herself, nodding to Dave, and leaves the room. She was told she'd be free to go once Dave had been taken here, and to await the official release papers. She finds the nearest exit and finds and isolated area to recharge her solar powered boots. They don't really need a full charge, she just needed an excuse to leave. Secretly, hopes that she'll see Dave once more before he goes wherever he's required to in his new life.

The sun is high over the pyramids, but the sky is still fairly dark beyond the flurry of colors in the atmosphere, some stars still visible. If she remembers correctly, the entire water reservoir is underground, and everyone on the planet has a high regard for the environment, even if they do rub it in everyone else's faces. She stares at the apexes of the pyramids, which have blinking lights atop them, each in different fun colors. Her favorite is the lime green one. She counts thirteen slow blinks before her boots beep, fully charged.

"That was quick," she mumbles. She sighs and begrudgingly returns to the dining room.

* * *

 "I know our brother didn't tell you everything about us," Roxy says to Dave in confidence. Most of the guests are gone, with only a few remain on the far side of the room for some reason. Jade is gone, too. She's been gone for a while. But she's fine, or so he hopes.

"What did your brother not tell me?" Dave is starting to get annoyed with this automatic family stuff. Just because his birth parents died in an accident when he was four, and as an only child he bounced from foster to foster, and he doesn't remember anything about said birth parents, it doesn't mean that he's going to automatically accept these crazy old people as his flesh and blood. Although it looks like Dirk was right, Roxy does appear to be "fairly harmless" as he put it. But all this champagne-induced happiness that she's exuding is starting to feel like an over-the-top facade.

"Past you actually owned planets," she says with a secretive smile and a wink, apparently ditching the slurred speech. "Two I believe. I invited some DPP people to negotiate."

Dave raises his eyebrows. "Entire planets? DPP people?" He pauses. "Which planets?" He internally begs that they be Jupiter or at least Mars so he could colonize them or something. Then he could actually have people live there and be known as "Martians."

"Of course there's the Beta planet Lohac, and then there's one in your solar system. As a matter of fact, it's the planet you grew up on, creatively named 'Earth.' Technically, all Terran planets have earth on it, but at the time, you said it was so common it was hilarious."

"Sounds like past me loved irony." Dave still does like irony, and it seems like something he would do even now. Wait, what?! "Past me owned Earth?!" he yells, eyes wide. "Like Earth Earth? Seven continents, seventy percent water, roughly seven billion people Earth?" He takes a breath. "Please tell me I rode dinosaurs."

"Those beasts? They were relocated before we were born. They're on a different planet now. Lomax if I remember correctly." He can tell Roxy was amused by his excitement. Now he wants to go to Lomax or whatever. "I own Venus, Dirk owns Saturn, and Rose owns Jupiter."

Damn, Rose gets all the good ones. All of this planet owning and possible colonies on those planets is getting him all worked up. But seriously, rich people and owning entire hunks of land. It suddenly occurs to him that the pyramids might actually have been built by aliens. Humans, technically, but still aliens. He calms down internally, taking a deep breath. Now that he's thinking about it, and of all the shit that's happening on Earth, he doesn't feel so excited anymore. Now he feels obligated to help, and It's pretty fucking overwhelming. As the owner of something, you'd think that he should be able to do something to fucking clean it up.

"Okay! That's settled!" Her voice brings him back to the conversation. "Now to sign it over to you." She waves to the DPP people she mentioned earlier, the same people from across the room, dressed in what was probably their style of professional clothing, high collared one piece pantsuit things. Three of them were humans in matching grey pantsuits, the fourth a troll with small pointed horns decked out in a red pantsuit and red pointed glasses with red lenses. Dave thinks that is too much red, but what can you do about other people's' tastes? "Some representatives from the Department of Planetary Properties are here, and all they need is a signature."

"Well, hand me a space pen right now and let's sign this shit," he says, actually taking off his sunglasses.

"You don't need a pen, just your arm."

"Huh?"

The troll decked out in red carries a thick tablet with buttons on the side to them, swiping the dishes away, almost off the table completely and onto the floor. She presses the buttons in a specific combination and an arch pops up with what looks like a scanner inside it.

"Stick your wrist under the scanner," she says, revealing razor sharp teeth. She sniffs in his general direction, and grins.

Gulping, he complies, putting his hand through and rests his arm face-up on the tablet itself. The scanner thing turns on and starts printing a luminescent image on his wrist. He's surprised how painless the whole process is. After thirty seconds, the task is complete. It's shaped like a fancy circle knot with two rotating planets inside it. One is definitely Earth and the other is probably Lohac, with what looks like a gear hovering around it.

Jade comes back by then, and Dave turns to her. He notices that she is more melancholy than usual and immediately wants to cheer her up.

"Get a load of my sweet new tat," he says, showing off his wrist. "Apparently I'm the owner of Earth _and_ Lohac." She acknowledged it, making an approval nod. Now that Jade is going to be free, he hopes they can see each other any time they want. If she wants to, that is. He wonders if Jade can get in on the "youth forever" deal by association.

“As for you, Jade,” Roxy says, motioning for Jade to approach with a single finger.

“Yes, your grace?” Jade responds politely.

“I have brought my lawyer here to arrange your freedom.” Roxy gestures to the troll woman in red.

“Thank you.” Jade bows again, then goes over to the lawyer.

“While they go do their thing, we need to speak of other… issues,” Roxy whispers to Dave, leading him away.

He sighs, annoyed that they keep taking him away from Jade. They reach the corridor before Roxy starts talking again.

“I’m going to let Calliope take you back to Earth now.”

“What? Why? Everything is happening and now you want to ditch me? I thought I was in danger or something. To be honest, I expected more high-tech protection, considering.” Nobody has even tried to explain why the Croconaks were wanting to eat him. He's their ruler, right? Rather, past Dave was. But who sent them? It probably wasn’t Dirk or Roxy, since they sent bounty hunters. Was it a rival family? Or was it some dastardly villain straight from a sci-fi movie sent to kill him for reasons unexplained until the very end?

“I need you to promise me you will not engage our sister, Rose.”

Dave blinks. Dirk had said that she rivals his genius, but exactly how smart is _he_? Roxy's warning is so stern, Rose must be _very_ smart indeed.

“She is after Earth for one thing, and one thing only: She is convinced that Earth is far too polluted for future use. Pollution creates bad product, you see, and if you're on Earth, she won't be able to—"

Dave interrupts. “Wait, hold up. Bad product? What are we, livestock?”

“Well...” Roxy pauses briefly. “I need to show you.”

She leads him down a long series of hallways, coming to a vault-looking door. She unlocks and opens it for him. Inside, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of glass tubes filled with some sort of liquid, packed into wire crates and stacked by color. Was this where that Veil stuff in Dirk’s bath came from?

Roxy picks a tube with a teal tint. “This room is my personal supply of Veil. This particular color is from Lotaf, the planet where my lawyer Terezi is from.” She hands it to Dave. “Each one of these vials is comprised of the essence of one hundred trolls.”

“Oh my god.” Dave drops it, but Roxy stealthily catches it before it smashes to the ground. “Please tell me that they’re all volunteers.”

“I cannot confirm or deny, as I wasn’t there when these were inducted. All I know is that they’ve been in revolt for years now, and product from there is extremely hard to come by. Expensive, that's for sure. It set the bar for all highbloods. As a matter of fact, just six months ago we reaped a bountiful crop from...” Dave tunes her out. He wonders if Terezi knows of all this. Would she still even work for the royalty if she knew what was happening here? Maybe she does, maybe she doesn't. Roxy gingerly places it back into the pile, then picks up another one, perfectly transparent. “These however, are more common.” She smiles, looking at Dave through the glass tube. “And cheap, considering.” She dusts it off and puts it back again. “Human.”

Dave feels like throwing up. No wonder past him died. He determined that past Dave was either assassinated or he offed himself. The whole idea is fucking unbelievable. He literally cannot think of some clever way to say "genocide" in a true Dave-like manner without offending everyone, including himself.

“We never even considered trolls for Veil before a century ago. It was actually a recent discovery that the higher the troll’s caste, the more effective the serum. The longer the life expectancy, the more years the user lives. Even the quote-unquote-lowblood's essences are more potent than a human's! The highbloods seem to be the moneymakers, since they live much, much longer. The only ones we can’t seem to defeat are the seadwelling ones. Slippery, powerful... and so worth it. But I digress!” She finally pays attention to Dave, most likely noticing his scowl. “What’s wrong?”

He practically explodes with words. “This is! The whole thing! Man, no wonder past me died! This is so wrong on so many mother _fucking_ levels. These are people, not cows!” He turns to leave. “Just... take me back to Earth and let me live my polluted life, and keep your world of eternal bullshit fuckery away from me.” And at that, he storms out as coolly and indifferent as possible, which he assures the nonexistent audience that it is exacting and arduous to say the motherfucking least.

* * *

 "So does this screw go here?" Vriska asks John for the thousandth time. He loves her, but this is starting to get silly! It's like she never worked a day in her life!

He sighs and says, "Actually, this is a Philips head and it can only work with the screwdrivers with the same shape."

"Okay, thanks," she says smugly, going back to work. Despite not knowing the difference, she can handle the drill pretty well. He wonders if she's faking not knowing this stuff on purpose. Part of why he asked her out was because he wanted to figure her out once and for all. Like, what's her deal?

There's a knock on the door. It's probably Dave. John wants to get up to answer it, but Vriska is there first. He continues putting together their new OKEA furniture (where the furniture is "OK") until the door slams very loud, making him jump.

"Who was that?" John asks, not looking up.

"Aliens." He looks up to laugh but sees a serious expression on her face. "Look, here's the thing. I lied to you. I'm not who I say I am."

Before John can tell her she's being ridiculous, the door basically explodes, sending shrapnel everywhere. He jumps to protect her just in time.

"We're looking for John Egbert," a tough-sounding voice says in perfect English into their apartment. He turns around to see two large, winged creatures with dog-shaped heads, one black and one white, covered in fur. They are also scantily clad and holding swords.

John picks up a hammer and threatens, "Get out of my apartment, or I'll call the police!"

The white one saunters up to him and swipes the hammer out of his hand, making it clunk to the ground.

"A hammer, John? Really?" Vriska whispers into his ear, annoyed.

"You're coming with us, human," the black one says in that same tough-sounding voice.

The white one sniffs the air, turning to Vriska. "You too, highblood," she says. John didn't expect the voice to be female. She makes a grab for his girlfriend, who doesn't come quietly. John tries to pry her from the white one's grip, but gets pulled back by the black one.

"Feisty, ain't they, PM?" the black one laughs.

"Shut up, Jack, we have a job to do," the white one says sternly. "Prepare the hatch for boarding," she says into a silver pendant around her neck. Then she clutches Vriska to her torso and leaps out the window, breaking it in the process.

Petrified, John lets the black one (apparently named "Jack") do the same. On one hand, he's scared for his life. On the other, he's getting abducted by aliens and that is so cool! But not cool because they also took his girlfriend and breaking his windows! And why did Vriska not deny them calling her a "highblood" or whatever? On the first hand, why is he still so chill about this?! He tries to stay awake, but they're flying so high that the air becomes thin and he passes out.

 


	5. Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the part where she kills you. Or at least is responsible for other crimes.

Jade can’t help but feel utterly disappointed. It turns out that Terezi can’t do anything since Jade was a runaway. She had to have already filed at least one grievance against her master before her freedom could be investigated and granted by intergalactic law. That means that since Jade was taken by Karkat, she would have to file a complaint to her master back on Jupiter. To make it even worse, Jade technically has no birth certificate or family name to attach, so there would be no papers to prove that she even exists. She runs gloved hand over the brand on her neck that shows that she is a dog splice with a heavy heart, trying not to be too depressed about it. Unsure where to go next, she boards Calliope’s ship to wait to get back to Earth.

She perches atop a tall stack of crates in the cargo bay, nearly touching the ceiling even while sitting, and lets her legs dangle from the edge. She doesn’t put on her mask or goggles, so she keeps them around her neck. She is shortly joined by a very angry Dave storming in, hands are balled into fists. He goes to the nearest wall and punches it, yelling out. He has changed out of his fancy black clothing and into a standard sleeveless uniform given to male crew members on Calliope's ship.

Jade leaps down from the height and asks, "Are you okay?"

"Jesus!" he yells, recoiling from her sudden appearance. Holding his injured hand, he answers her question, "No I'm fine, I just need to be taken to a hospital. No big deal." He breathes through his teeth, probably trying to fight off the pain.

"Do you feel better now?"

"Kinda yeah." He shakes out his hand, gritting his teeth.

"What happened?"

"Apparently the rich are staying young for eons bathing in people juice."

Jade blinks. "People juice?"

"Some kind of weird serum called Veil. Apparently the only way to obtain it is by killing people. It takes hundreds to do it and from what I heard, they don't have a choice in the matter. I'm not down with that. I want to leave all these weird-ass ritual-loving dickwads and just go home. To Earth. I miss my friends and according to some sauce guzzling royal asshats, my past self's other sister wants to rid my home planet of its population. I wish I was never involved in this crap." He turns to her. "Did you know about this?"

Jade shakes her head. "I did not. It sounds horrifying!" In all her research she had seen that the rulers of the Alpha-Beta system were the same for years, but the secret was kept under tight wraps. Although, it doesn't surprise her that the rich would go to such lengths. The fact that Dave detests it makes her feel proud that he's above all of that. She respects that. "In the meantime, let's get that hand looked at," she says.

"Aye, aye, Commander Shepherd," he says, saluting with his uninjured hand.

Jade stifles some laughter, trying not to snort.

He quirks a brow. "Oh my god, you actually understood that reference?"

"No, but you said it with such sincerity!" She tones it down to a smile.

“Oh well, fine, I see how it is. Indulging me like some half-wit who has no friends nor ironic detection. How patronizing.”

Jade frowns. “Sor- _ry_.” She turns away, but he takes her arm.

“I’m kidding.” The sentiment is reassuring, but she still feels weird for it. She learns something new about people every day, she guesses. Dave takes her hand in both of his. He looks about to say something, but doesn’t.

It then clicks that she is letting him hold her hand and she gently pulls away, nodding for him to follow her to the medical bay. Staying ahead of him, she doesn’t let him see her face flushing at what just happened.

A few hours later, they are off the ground and ready to go back to Earth. The medical officer kicks them out, for Dave was completely fine. Besides, they had been taking up one of the two beds and ostensively bothering her with their blabbering and jabbering of unimportant Earth things. Instead, they decide to go to the bridge, where Dave has never seen the portal process, and Jade assures him it’s not anything special. To this, he assures her that he’s only mildly curious and he’s not excited at all. Not one bit. He says it’d just be cool that’s all, and pushes up his sunglasses to accentuate that point. Jade tells him that they probably won’t go after all, in which Dave sighs and says that they should probably go just in case. When Jade asks what in the world they might need them for “just in case,” he just ignores her and keeps walking to the lift that leads right to the bridge. She tells him that she will follow, “just in case” as well.

Captain Calliope is too preoccupied to notice them come in. She’s hunching over someone’s shoulder, most likely the helmsman, to see what is happening on their screen. Jade hears everything perfectly.

“I’ve detected another ship coming through a separate portal, and it’s not a signature I recognize,” the human helmsman whispers to Calliope.

“Try hailing them,” the captain orders.

“I have,” the helmsman reports. “They’re probably waiting to exit.”

“We will wait then.” She turns to the bridge engineer and says, “Raise asteroid shields. They could be unfriendlies.” She notices Jade and Dave there and puts on a reassuring smile. Jade didn’t need highly sensitive dog senses to see that the captain is worried about exactly who is coming from that portal when it opens.

Through the windows, there is a flash of light from outside the ship. A rectangular portal forms, and out comes a large ship, much larger than Calliope’s. The bullet-shaped ship bears none other than the insignia of the Cthulhu. They begin firing upon the smaller ship.

Before any of the charges hit, Calliope yells, “Evasive maneuvers! Buy time and head to the portal behind them before it closes!” She turns to Jade and Dave and says, “Get to a safe place, now!”

Jade snatches Dave by his shirt and pulls him back to the lift. She presses the button and it opens just in time for her to throw him in to avoid further injury from the ship’s turbulent movements.

Suddenly, a screen blinks on, a calm face filling it. She is wearing purple robes with roses adorned in her hair like a headband. Her makeup is heavy around the eyes, and her lips are painted pitch black, and the way she stares into the camera is very intimidating indeed.

“Salutations,” she says in a sultry voice.

This must be Princess Rose, Jade figures. She blocks Dave from the view screen, hoping he isn’t doing the dumb thing and watching over his shoulder and giving away his position.

“Oh, I see you have my brother,” she says knowingly. Jade drops her head and rolls it to see if Dave had revealed himself, which he did. And he was keeping the door open. What was the point of having her arms wide if he wasn’t going to take advantage of the cover? She puts them down, clenching her hands in vexation.

The entire time this is happening, Rose is firing upon them tactfully.

“Feel free to send him my way, if you don’t mind. We have much to discuss.”

The video screen then changes to an image of two people she's never seen before strapped to medical slabs. Dave reacts immediately.

"You leave them out of this!" he yells at the screen, pointing at her angrily when her face returns.

"Prepare to be boarded," she says as the portal closes behind her ship. The viewport flicks off and they stop firing. Captain Calliope tells the crew to put together a security team.

Jade turns to Dave, who is seething and trying to keep his cool at the same time.

* * *

"Your grace, we have the means to protect you," Captain Calliope tells him with confidence. He's sure she does, but people might die because of him, and he doesn't want anyone to lose their lives for that, especially people that aren't directly involved. He needs to save John and Vriska, and it looks like becoming Rose's hostage is going to do just that.

"Dave, at least let me go with you," Jade insists. "Or at least help you come up with a plan."

He looks up at her, putting on a brave face, a straighter face than usual. Good thing he's wearing his sunglasses because he's barely keeping it together here. "And risk you getting captured? No thanks. I—"

"Really Dave?" She puts her hands on her hips. "You insult my intelligence. I'll come up with something. Since you are a royal, my prime directive is to keep you alive."

She's a headstrong one, for sure. "You won't get yourself killed will you?"

"I won't."

Still unsure, he lets her, the captain and some armed crew members through and they travel down to the large airlock to receive their guests. The outer doors open and let in two black and white flying creatures that look like giant, fuzzy dog fairies straight from the DeviantArt gallery of a twelve-year-old, followed by what looks like a shuttle from a science fiction TV show. They remove their helmets after the giant airlock shuts behind them. That isn't a furry spacesuit. Is that their actual skin? Hide? Whatever. Dave is calling shenanigans. There is no way that living things could survive in space longer than a minute. These guys were out there for at least three. Calliope's crew members start activating their weapons as the small ship opens its doors and some regular-looking people step out, blocking the last passenger from view.

The doors separating the two groups open.

"Jack," Jade says, regarding the black one, who is nearly twice as tall as Dave is.

"Jade," Jack sneers back. Dave is only mildly concerned that they know each other. At this point, Calliope's crew looks about ready to brawl.

"Now, now, there's no need for theatrics," says that smooth voice from earlier. She steps out from behind her entourage. "I am a serious businesswoman. Rest assured." She gestures to the big one doing all the theatrics. "Down, boy." Rose faces Dave. "Splices. A poor girl cannot simply roam the universe without protection, can she?"

Dave leans over to Jade. "Those are splices?"

"At least two additional sets of DNA. Carapacians like them can handle even more. Someone I knew had twelve sets in him while I was incarcerated."

"You were incarcerated?" Dave is in shock. He can't imagine Jade doing anything to deserve prison.

"More like kidnapped against my will and experimented on."

"Same difference?"

"Am I boring you, brother?" Rose says with a hint of annoyance.

"No ma'am. Just commenting on your copious amount of flowers. How do you not send people with allergies into anaphylactic shock just by walking past them?"

Rose narrows her eyes. Then she laughs a quiet, smug laugh. With a flick of her wrist, the two splices attack. All of the men and women Calliope brought with her, plus Jade, were knocked back by their powerful wings, leaving Dave exposed. The more normal-looking people that were with Rose start to swarm him. Fighting back, one of them sticks a needle in his neck. He feels himself starting to fade, and the last thing he sees is Jade charging the group.

* * *

Jade’s path is blocked by Jack, forcing her to sidestep and take him from his left. She wrestles with him, sinking her teeth into wherever she can get it. He fights back with killer intent, as usual. Back in the labs, every time she went head to head with him, he could always beat her because of her lack of killer intent. Lunging, she uses her boots to help launch herself at him and manages to get him on his back. Placing a hand on his wrist and inner elbow, she nearly rips off his arm. He screams and kicks her off, making her hit the wall.

"Don't think that little trick'll work again," he pants. He tries to move his arm but cries out again. "Bitch, you dislocated it!"

She hears the shuttle's engines starting up. The captain collects her crew and gets them back to safety. Jade runs toward the ship instead and gets yanked back by one of Jack's black tendrils. She kicks her boots on again to try to burn him. It works and she's free.

"Jade, get over here!" Calliope orders.

Jade won't. She won't let Dave be taken again.

"Jack put on your helmet, now," the white one says.

He listens, but says to Jade, "This ain't over."

She's about ready to lunge again when she's held back by five sets of arms. She nearly escapes their hold, but even more people join in, effectively dragging her back. The glass airlock closes in front of her eyes and the small ship blasts a hole into the outer door, making their escape.

Once Jade is released, she pounds on the glass door and turns to captain Calliope. "Why did you do that?!" she yells.

Calliope says nothing, but calmly walks up to Jade and slaps her with the back of her hand. It didn't hurt, but it it did stun Jade into silence. "You're not going to get him back by being hysterical. I was doing what was best for my crew and I am truly sorry for forcing you back. But if you want to rescue your friend, we need to come up with a plan. As a team. If you don't like it, you can leave my ship this very moment. And if you do not want to die, you will stay."

Jade bows her head in shame. While she was distracted fighting a losing battle, Calliope did the right thing and got her crew to safety. And from the looks of it, everyone was somewhat injured, but alive.

She breathes in through her nose and out from her mouth for a few cycles. "What do we do?" Jade asks.

* * *

Dave wakes up on a gurney. Or at least, he hopes it's a gurney. He sits up, groaning and rubbing his temples. He must have been drugged when he was kidnapped again. He finds his sunglasses clipped to the front of his shirt and puts them on.

Looking around, he sees two very familiar people strapped to what looks like surgery tables. The room is vast and filled with at least twenty five of them. He feels his anger swelling again and leaps out of whatever kind of slab he was in to try to get them out.

He goes over to John first, shaking him. "Bro, get up," he says quietly. Then he goes to Vriska, shaking her awake as well.

"Where are we?" John asks with his usual groggy voice. Dave goes back to John to free him first. They look like they're locked with a key.

"Fuuuuuuuuck," Vriska moans. "I've had nightmares of this place and now look. All my hard work gone to waste." She struggles against her binds.

"What?" John asks close to panicking.

"Don't tell me you know where we are," Dave says. "Oh by the way, the straps are locked with a key."

"Yeah, yeah," she says, briefly giving up. She closes her cerulean eyes as if focusing on something really hard, then gives up that too, muttering a curse.

Dave searches the bleak walls and finds no hooks for a key. The door has no window or handle and looks like solid steel. Out of curiosity he scans the floor and sees what looks like a trap door underneath each bed-slash-table thing. Every piece of architecture here looks like stone or metal. He's not liking these odds.

"So what are you supposed to be?" Dave asks. "Human? Troll? Splice?"

"I'm no splice!" Vriska snaps. "I'm a very blueblooded troll, as a matter of fact! I'm from Lomat and they're mostly dead now. I'm one of the select few that were spared the culling and kept around for possible repopulation." She sighs and turns her head to John. "Sorry, John." Dave takes a closer look at where her binds rub against her wrists and elbows and sure enough, there is gray skin underneath copious amounts of Caucasian makeup. He wonders how she hid her horns for so long.

John stares at her, stars in his eyes. "You're an alien? That's awesome! Is that why we've never—"

"Enough!" Dave interrupts, not wanting to be here for this conversation. "We have a real situation here."

"What, did you get kidnapped, too?" Vriska asks, unimpressed. "Are you an _alien_?"

"Nope. Human. Still earthborn. It's complicated. Look, all you need to know is that some crazy people think I'm royalty because of some DNA shit that I don't really care to understand." The door opens with a hiss and the white Carapacian splice comes through, her gaze locked on Dave. "You're not gonna make me change clothes are you? Because that would be the absolute worst. I'm tired of dress up. Y'all royals made me burn my favorite shirt and I won't forgive and forget that easily."

"They made you burn your baseball shirt?" John asks. "Wow, bummer."

"I know, right?"

"No," the Carapacian answers simply. Not wasting any time, she makes a grab for Dave, who tries to dodge.

He fails to dodge and is dragged out by his elbow kicking and punching wherever he can make contact. As he expected, she is built tough like the American car. He hears John cheering him on until the door shuts behind them.

"Cease this tomfoolery, your resistance is fruitless," she says.

"Replace 'fruitless' with 'futile' and we have a deal," he says, his joints starting to hurt from all the fighting. She doesn't respond and he stops anyway, promising himself that if he ever gets back home, he's going to take karate or something because this "having enemies" stuff is ridiculous.

She takes him outside, guiding him through what is probably the hottest livable planet in the galaxy. He doesn't know where he is, but everything is red and gold and completely utilitarian. There are some dark colored tentacle embellishments in the adjacent elevator but that's it. In the distance, he can see a few gold statues of those nakocrocs, and the biggest one is human shaped with flowing robes. He can only see the back, but he's about eighty-eight percent sure it's of his past self. And what is that pose? That weird welcoming bow that Dirk performed when they met yesterday? Was it yesterday? He has no fucking clue anymore. What with all the shit going on lately he's surprised he hasn't slept much, if at all. He considers it a plot hole and focuses on not tripping over himself.

They enter the elevator and the inside is simple enough. The only buttons are up and down and he can see right through the chain link walls. The whole architecture of the place is like that, now that he notices it. The whole place has an unfinished structure feel, metal beams and gears everywhere. It's not until he gets up to the second floor where he realized two things: one, there is no ground beyond the pathways only lava; and two, there are no stairs. They exit the elevator on said second floor and go through another steel door, where thankfully it's cooler on the inside.

On the far side of the enormous room stands Rose, gazing out of the wall-to-wall-and-floor-to-ceiling paneled window, gear designs etched into the glass and colored in with black. Next to her stands the black Carapacian, and behind her there's a cushioned two-seater with brightly colored pillows. Among all the splendor, that couch is just about the most ironic thing he’s ever seen. She turns to her guests in a graceful yet dramatic fashion and smiles.

"Welcome to your new home, brother," she announces in her unnervingly pleasant voice. "Lohac."

The white Carapacian nudges him ahead. He succeeds in not stumbling and squares his shoulders bravely. This must be the sister that Dirk warned about, the sister that "rivals even my genius" as he put it. Dave is going to go ahead and guess that this is going to be a long rest of his day.

 


	6. Dave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is it. The end has come. Secrets are revealed and people are shocked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's super long because I don't want to write a sequel. Or a prequel. I just don't. Enjoy!

Whatever Jade does, she can't sit still. She tried sleeping and had a horrible nightmare within twenty minutes. She tried borrowing Captain Calliope's exercise equipment to blow off steam, but that just made her more energized. The only thing that made her calm down was finding a place to recharge her boots and research both Lohac and Lolar, using her minimal hacking skills to get the blueprints of their floor plans, secret passages, etc. The captain scheduled a tactical meeting for right now, which Jade adamantly demanded that she be a part of, even if it is only as an observer. The captain allowed that she be a part of the discussion, which Jade is thankful for, but yet...

"I call the meeting to order," Calliope announces after she introduced everyone in attendance. They were all her senior crew, ranging from commanders and the head of security to supportive members like the chief of engineering and the main medical officer. "We have discovered where they have taken Dave Strider. Sources confirm that he was indeed taken to Lohac, and not Lolar. I have given each of you time to consider the facts before us, and it is now time for us to collaborate and formulate a plan to retrieve him and take him home. Due to extenuating circumstances, we might not have the resources nor the time to solve this politically. The army that Rose leads is a large one, however I do have some colleagues standing by should we need them, though few willing to give their lives for such an important figure in the Alpha-Beta Alliance." She hands it over to her first in command, who delivers his ideas, then the second in command, then the third, then to everyone else. Jade, who is sitting on Calliope's left and therefore the last to contribute, pitches her plan. True, it isn't as thought out as the rest, but she didn't have a lot of time to think clearly, either. "Alright, if that is everyone, we will now proceed to the debating."

As soon as she utters those words, all hell breaks loose. Everyone starts arguing with each other, pointing out flaws and explaining that their own solutions are the best ones.

Jade immediately scoots away from the table, checks her portable research device, and notices that Karkat has sent five messages. She opens the earliest one, apparently received the time that the meeting had started, which is essentially chewing her out for being an idiot who goes after strange ships to prevent the inevitable, plus a paragraph-long rant about how awkward it was to explain to the police why they had a stolen truck in front of Sollux's home. The second is an awkward and long-winded apology. The third is like it. The fourth:

"YOU. ME. OUTSIDE. NOW." Then a needlessly wordy plan of retrieval.

She gets up to leave, staring at the outdated two-dimensional screen. "Permission to be excused, captain?" Jade asks, tearing her eyes from the screen for a moment.

Calliope waves her hand, her expression pained as if the lack of togetherness among her senior crew happens too often for her liking.

Jade nods her head slightly and goes back to the screen to reread the first line of the fifth message:

"You do know how to pilot a shuttle, right?"

Of course Jade knows how to pilot a shuttle. She learned from the best after all. She puts the small tablet away and finds her way to the cargo bay, acquiring someone's jacket from the lost and found. As she arrives, she puts on her mask and goggles and activates oxygen mode, then opens the doors. Everything is tied down except for Jade, who was ready in a crouching position, and is immediately sucked into the vacuum of space.

Outside the ship waiting for her are a couple of shuttles, outfitted for surviving a full scale battle or two. One leaves the minuscule formation and flies to her, not a single moment wasted. Jade can withstand the coldness of space for five minutes maximum, or so she had been told. Any longer than that and she starts freezing to death.

As soon as the shuttle door opens and Jade is safely inside, the words start flying.

"I'm not going to listen to any shitty apology you might have in store for me concerning the trouble I went through to get here," Karkat yells as she takes off the mask and goggles.

"I wasn't going to," Jade replies, shrugging off the jacket.

"Good! By the way, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, would you please disable your intra-galactic positioning system on your tablet?! Those old devices will get you in trouble, then I will get in trouble, and then I'll have to explain to his honorable tyranny why I laid hands on a human with malicious intent, and to which I will say to kindly fuck off."

Jade had stopped listening at "those old devices". "I like my device just the way it is. Besides, how did you even find me without it?"

"I have friends in higher places. Some of them owe me favors. Don't make me regret contacting them."

Jade smiles. "Thank you, Karkat."

Karkat turns to the controls and steers the ship to the other small ships. "Your ship is the one with the lime green stripes running along it. Now please, for the love of all that is sacred in the universe, don't crash it. I don't think my friends are as understanding as I am, given what happened when you—"

"Why would you bring that up now?!" Jade groans. She crashed his shuttle once, and he never lets her forget it. "We have a real situation here!" She readies herself by the hatch and waits for Karkat to connect the two shuttles so she can transfer.

Safely on her very own ship, she quickly gets used to the controls again, just like riding a bike. The only thing she hasn't trained for is  the defense system.

"Karkat, one question," Jade asks after turning on her comm.

"The buttons are on the steering mechanism," he answers. "Simply push to fire. Don't test it out or so help me. We weren't given that much ammo and these ships aren't that powerful for infinite proton charges. They're made for simple transport, not a full scale war, which is the last thing we need to involve ourselves in right now."

Jade almost does right there and then. The portal opens and she and Karkat lead their small squadron through it. She resists the urge to charge ahead.

* * *

"So what's the deal here, bro?" Dave asks his alleged sister. The two Carapacians are standing next to each other ominously on either side of her. The sight reminds him of ancient Egyptian temples with two big dog gods guarding the dead pharaohs. He tries not to stare at the black one giving him the stink eye.

"The 'deal' is that I have called you to this room to help encourage you to make the right decision," she answers. She glides to the side wall, opening a metal panel and clicking some switches to "ON." When she does, the floor seems to fade away, revealing the room below them, almost like the floor was never there to begin with. Below Rose and the Carapacians, lies John and Vriska. "I'm sure you have seen what lies beneath our feet, young Dave."

"Yeah, what of it?"

"And the trapdoors beneath them?" Before he can respond, she lowers her hand to another row of switches and flicks two of them down.

He looks down and two of the beds tilt backward and dump a whole lot of nothing down into what looks like a lake of lava. He quickly glances up and finds John panicking soundlessly and Vriska yelling silent words at him, probably telling him to shut up. The doors below him close again.

"Whoops, wrong two beds, my mistake," Rose says, causing him to look back up at her.

He then realizes that his hands have made fists and his nails are digging into his palm. "What do you want from me?"

"Permission."

"Permission to what, dump my only friends into lava? You're out of your fucking mind, lady."

Rose laughs somewhat heartily. "Of course not! We're trying to _prevent_ them from being sacrificed for the good of quality consumer products."

"What are the terms? Their lives for what, seven billion strangers? Yeesh, sounds kind of steep to me."

"You won't even consider it? Are you even slightly conflicted?"

"Oh, I'm conflicted all right. I'm just debating the possibility of you keeping your word."

Rose raises an eyebrow curiously, lowering it a few seconds later. "You certainly are perceptive, young man." She approaches him, seeming to float in her flower themed garb that reaches the floor. "Worry not, I only seek one of your planets. I believe my meddling siblings already mentioned my motivations."

"They did." Dave notices that she is the only one who didn't associate him with the actual royalty. "They also said you were the smartest." Two can play at this game. But what else does he know about her? Not a whole lot more than what he just said. On the other hand, she probably knows his whole life.

"So you are willing to sign the planet Earth over to me?"

"Wait, I thought we were talking about Mars."

"We were speaking of Earth."

"Are you the one who owns Mars then?"

"No."

"Damn, I wanted to get on that shit." He pauses. "Is it Roxy?"

Rose seems to realize his "freeflowing bullshit cascade" strategy and gets right back on topic, narrowing her eyes. "Clearly, you have no intention to simply hand over your wealth."

"You caught me."

"And why not?"

Dave heaves a sigh. "Look, as much as your dastardly deal or whatever is tempting, I just can't decide on my friends over the lives of that many people." This should be an easy decision. Obviously, he should choose the people of earth, but as Roxy said, Rose doesn't even think they're suitable for producing Veil, which is all the rage among galactic nobility. It's like Earth is an infestation, and Rose is the exterminator. And if she gets her way, then Dave would be the poison. Probably. He can't make up metaphors when he's facing adversaries this powerful. "I just have a couple more questions. Last ones, I promise."

"What is it?"

"If I don't sign it over, you can't touch it, right?"

Rose doesn't answer his question.

"And you've waited what, four hundred years to obtain it?"

Rose grits her teeth. "Four hundred and thirteen."

"Welp." He smirks. "You're just going to have to kill me, then." The quip is genius, his smile ingenuine, and he regrets the decision instantly.

As if on cue, the still-transparent floor shows a commotion below them. He looks down to see a familiar dog-faced mask freeing John and Vriska. With her bare hands, Jade rips the binds off of the beds and frees Vriska first, then John.

Suddenly, the hatches start opening to the lava. Dave looks up to see that Rose had traveled to the panel and started clawing at the switches, hoping that the intruder would fall in.

"Noir!" Rose shouts, her voice cracking. He can tell she never raises her voice ever.

"It'll be my pleasure, your majesty," Jack answers before flying out the door at super speed. Dave watches the splice fly by helplessly. Has the door been open the whole time? He glances back down to the trio downstairs and sees Jade carrying one person in each arm, easily gliding over the gaping holes in the floor. As soon as she gets to the door, it's thrown open and Jack appears. Jade puts them down and they huddle against the adjacent wall. She motions to Jack to come at her and he lunges, apparently falling for it because she dodges him and he crashes into one of the tilted beds, nearly falling into the magma below. Jade rushes John and Vriska out the door and they disappear from his view. He hears crashing outside and gets worried again, then sees Jack regaining his balance and chasing after them.

"Blanche," Rose says, getting Dave's attention again. He was so excited to see Jade rescue his friends that he forgot to comprehend the position that he's in.

"Yes?" Blanche replies.

"Sic him."

Dave doesn't even wait for Blanche to attack and takes off for the door. He immediately turns right and glances behind him just in time to see the white Carapacian emerging from the room. He is immediately reminded that it is so unbelievably hot here, worse than a Texan August. He wonders how his past self lived with such heavy clothes and didn't die of heatstroke. Thank god he decided to change to more suitable wear on Calliope's ship.

He turns the corner, deciding in that moment that running away from the elevator was not such a great idea, and keeps running until the edge of the plain gray building stops and drops off into a lava-filled abyss. What he wouldn't do for some rocket boots right now.

* * *

Jade, carrying one person in each arm, goes as fast as she can to Karkat's ship to drop off the precious cargo. There's something familiar about the boy, but she can't place it. Maybe she smelled him through Dave's old clothes? That's probably it. The familiar scent tells her that these are the right people to rescue and not just some disguised imposters.

"Karkat!" Jade calls out to his ship as she quickly approaches it. She can see him through the cockpit window as he scrambles for something.

"What!" he yells through her two-way communication device, also outdated.

"I have the prisoners!"

"Two out of three. May I remind you that we need all three of them, as you so adamantly required before we started this mission? Were all the feelings and the come-ons that were exchanged between you two for the last few days nothing more than infatuated maudlin?"

She can't deal with this bullshit right now. "Just look behind me!"

A second of silence sounds as he is visually realizing their predicament. "Fuck, this is not—"

"What you wanted to do today! I know! Just open the hatch! I need to go back for Dave! I can get out on my own!"

He complies but asks, "You sure?"

She reaches the open door and lets the people go. "Positive, just go!"

She doesn't let either of Dave's friends protest before zooming back to Dave, avoiding Jack's sword. He clangs to the stone ground behind her. Also behind her, the sounds of Karkat's ship rocketing into the atmosphere. If Jack had any sense, he’d chase after them, but she knows that he is too hellbent to ignore her. She hid her ship elsewhere while Karkat acted as backup, which was part of his needlessly wordy plan to begin with. She had some tweaks, compensating for variables like Jack or someone coming after them, but it is also needlessly wordy. The original plan was for her to get them all at the same time, but she didn’t expect to be detected so soon.1

But just like before, she concentrates on nothing but her destination. The rocket boots she wears are just fast enough to outfly Jack, and only just. Any trip would send her to her doom. Fortunately, she has had ample training with them.

* * *

Dave had no idea why he was hiding. Blanche could literally find him any time. For now, he’s on the ground, his ankles not spared the hanging drop that he attempted about thirty seconds ago. He really wishes that he had the sense to wear gloves of some kind so he can assassin’s creed away from all this. That time has come and gone, and now he has snuck back to the elevator, huddled among the bars and staying as still as he possibly can until Jade comes back. If she comes back. He scans the landscape and sees a tower, not unlike the cell phone towers back home, in the middle distance. It’s the closest structure, and running to it would be suicide. But which is worse, being captured on the run, or being stuck here and getting found out anyway.

The sound of the elevator activating answers for him.

“Blanche, go assist Noir,” Rose orders, “I will take care of Dave myself.”

He was wondering what happened to Blanche. He watches as she flies off and Rose steps into the elevator. As soon as the doors close, he makes a run for the tower.

As he glances behind him to see if Rose is following, he catches a glimpse of who he believes is Jade coming right for him. He skids to a stop but sees her pointing to the tower. He points at it to confirm and she signals in agreement. He continues his run, but keeps an eye on the sky for Blanche. He sees her circling high above Jade, then makes a dive like a hawk in freefall.

“Jade, above you!” he yells, unsure if she heard him or not. She notices just in time and sways to her left. Dave should have been paying attention to his own nemesis, because a sudden blast of white energy whizzes past his head, a hair or two singed.

Jade meets up with him and he is once carried fireman style.

"Where are we going?" he asks as she zigzags and dodges the attacks coming from both Rose and Jack.

"I parked my ship this way," she answers. They are coming up on the building faster than when they were being chased on earth.

"Uh, Jade? Doesn't going faster with your boots take up more power?"

She dodges the question. "We're almost there."

Instead of going around the one-story building with the metal structure on top, she scales it as a shortcut. When they reach the top, he sees a smallish ship with a green stripe along it, with a couple of guns attached. Before he can properly revel in its glory, he is roughly snatched up by his shoulders and separated from Jade.

* * *

"No!" Jade shouts after him. He is carried up to the top of the structure to a platform by Blanche, who is carrying Rose with her. That just leaves—

"Just you an' me, girlie," Jack snarls. "I ain't gonna go easy after last time."

"I don't expect you to," she says between her teeth. She has had it up to her ears with this guy.

"If it were up t'me, I'd drop your little human friend into the lava and be done with it. It'd be nice bonus makin' ya watch, too. But the old lady wouldn't pay me as much if I killed him first. Y'know the economy sucks right now. A guy's gotta eat."

Is he stalling her? She perks up her ears to listen to the conversation four stories high. It's a stretch, but she hears them negotiating the property of earth. Politics never interested her, but she feels that if she were in his shoes and it concerned _her_ home, wherever that was or may be, she would try to make the right decision.

"You listenin' to me?" Jack brought her attention back to him, which is ridiculous because she never lost it. "I said I was gonna take you back to Jupiter. I know a pretty angry master who might be very thankful that you've been found."

Jade's eye twitches. Karkat had risked everything to get her and Sollux out of there. She's been free for eight years now, and she'd rather be imprisoned than return. Never again will she be taken advantage of then beaten like a dog. Never again will she be forced to participate in splice fights and treated like a slave. Never again will she wish for death to free her from this life. She turns to glare at Jack and growls lowly, "Over my dead body," and lurches towards him.

* * *

When Dave finally gets his bearings and gets over the sudden feeling of being so high without a safety net or a lifeline, he realizes that his fear of heights is the exact opposite of the top priority. Rose has been taking to him and he hasn't heard a word.

"Look lady, I'm sure that bringing me up here was a good idea at the time," he says, interrupting her, "but I don't think now is the best time for this negotiations about what planet belongs to who. You probably can't fully appreciate my expression because of my awesome shades my bro John gave me back in the day, so I'm gonna be straight witchu Diane: I am deathly ill and also sick of your shit. So if you don't mind, how about we take this conversation to solid ground? Does that sound good to you?"

"What _are_ you rambling about?" Rose asks with a quiet rage. She aims both of her weapons at him, which are two knitting needle looking things that remind him of Harry Potter. From what he has observed, they're basically giant tasers. And he kind of wants one despite being on the victim side. "You can surrender now, or I command Noir and Blanche to destroy your friend down there."

Dave considers it for a moment. He could deny being friends. But then Rose would want clarification. He could say that she's a stranger, but then she'd probably die sooner. If he said she was his love interest, she'll probably live about five seconds longer and incite a hostage situation, or kill her anyway to force him into submission.

"Well, brother? Decide. The woman or Earth."

Dave says the first dumbass thing that comes into his head. "What woman?" After all that thinking two paragraphs ago, this is snarky bullshit that comes out of his mouth?

Before Rose can reply, Dave goes on. "And I keep telling you people, I. Am not. Your brother! I mean damn, the years have just piled up all in your brain and made you all thick-headed morons."

"If you deny your heritage so much, then why did you agree to obtain custody of Earth?"

"Excellent question." Dave initially did it because it was his birthright. DNA right? Who cares? But Rose made a good point. What is he doing this for? And why should he even keep doing it? He's taking advantage of the biggest loophole in existence just because he disagrees with all the other circumstances that came with it. He comes to a horrible realization and swallows carefully before answering. "It's because I'm the only one who can."

Rose rolls her eyes and sighs, outwardly fatigued by his response. "I wanted to avoid murder today, but it seems I will have to succumb." She lowers one of her wand needles down, keeping the one trained on him. She looks down with it and Dave does, too. He widens his eyes. She's aiming for Jade, who's squaring off with a flying Jack directly below them, apparently making it hard for Rose to aim.

Dave takes the opportunity to launch himself at the overdressed royal and manages to get the wand she was holding towards him out of her grip. Shocked, she fires a kill shot at him, which barely misses him. It's times like these where he regrets not tolerating Dirk a little more so he could teach Dave how to do that flash step thing.

"Blanche, are you blind?" Rose exclaims, turning away from Dave. Come to think of it, Blanche didn't even defend Rose when Dave wrangled the wand from her. Rose looks around for the white spliced Carapacian, but she is nowhere to be found. Dave takes the opportunity again to snatch the second wand from Rose. She whirls around to Dave, dress and all, who now has her in a compromised position.

"Oh, how the turntables," Dave says with a satisfied smirk. That is, until he realizes that he said the classic one-liner wrong. "Wait, fuck."

Rose glances down, most likely to see if Jack would help her. Dave is pretty confident that Jade will defeat him. Knock him out, as is her policy with enemies. Rose does a double take and ignores Dave. The curiosity is killing him, so he looks down as well.

Holy shit.

* * *

All while fighting Jack, Jade keeps her eye up above. If she wants this to work, she has to be in the right place at exactly the right time.

"What the fuck are you looking at?" barks Jack. He yanks her collar and slams her against the concrete roof below them, knocking the wind out of her. She kicks him off with both feet but he only flies upward, visually unhurt.

Looking up, she takes her last sleeping blade and hurls it into the sky as hard as she can. She only has one shot, and she can't screw it up.

Jack dodges the blade easily, laughing. "You missed! That was incredibly stupid, girlie!"

"Yeah, laugh it up, fuckass," Jade mutters, trying not to portray her sanguinity. She stands up and raises her fists in front of her face. Ten, nine, eight...

Jack draws a sword, a dirty move since she relinquished her last weapon. He dives down in a freefall, giving her a wide, sharp-toothed grin. Five, four, three...

Jade holds her ground. Two, one.

Right on cue, Blanche's unconscious body lands right on top of Jack, causing him to lose his balance midair, and sends him pummelling straight to the ground, screaming all the way. They land no more than two feet from Jade. It'll take more than that to knock him out, so she immediately walks over to him before he can free himself and kicks his hard head.

"He's going to have a headache and another bone to pick with me when he wakes up," Jade speculates with regret. She kicks on her boots and flies up to join Dave.

* * *

"What now, dear brother?" Rose asks, her palms facing Dave in surrender. “I will admit that you have caught me arrogant and alone, with no other plans to signal for help.”

"I kind of want you to stop calling me ‘brother,’ first of all," he answers. He doesn't lower the weapons. "Don't make me use these." That’s what she gets for getting cocky. Compared to the other two, who had droves of servants and guards, Rose didn’t bring any to Lohac besides the Carapacians. It’s official, everything about this family is strange and they’ve probably lost a few screws over the centuries.

"Will you singlehandedly take down the most powerful royal in the galaxy?" She continued as if he wasn't even talking back at all. "Like I did to you, and like you did to the most powerful royal before you?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Dave deadpans. The way she keeps talking circles around him is really annoying. The only thing he caught was that she did in fact kill past him.

"Because honestly, this endless cycle of revenge has to stop _sometime_."

Okay, this was officially going right over his head. She has piqued his interest and he hates himself for it. "What?"

"Before you died last time, you helped us take down the most powerful being in the universe. That royal used her intelligence in ways not thought humanly possible. As a matter of fact, she helped _come up with_ the Veil recipe so widely used to this very day. She made other such concoctions in her lifetime, and eventually, she was widely known as 'the Witch.' You, our brother and sister, and I helped bring down that entire family, including their heirs. We saved countless potential planets from her cruel experiments. And we were happy to do it. Royalty lives to serve the people, but clearly our siblings have lost sight of that and force their people to serve _them_. If you join me, we can—"

Jade finally arrives, landing on the metal platform with a clang. "Dave, are you okay?" Jade asks, eyeing his new weapons warily. She doesn't even notice Rose. He really wants to get out of here with Jade and never come back.

"I'm good. I'm negotiating." He hands her one wand, letting that arm hang to rest. She takes it, but doesn't aim. "What about Earth? Do you still have a plan to annihilate them uselessly like a bad batch of meat?"

Without skipping a beat, Rose says, "More or less."

Dave sighs with as much exasperation as he can muster. "Why? I mean, I get it, most of them are terrible human beings with their littering and shit, but why now? Is it somehow my fucking fault that you're conveniently interested in Earth while I discover my birthright?"

"In a way, yes. To make a long story short, I have had the resources over the years to detect... _certain_ recurrences in human DNA." Her eyes flicker to Jade, then back to Dave. "Before you were found, I had no legal right to touch Earth. Simply put, I could wait four hundred and thirteen years for the will to annul itself, or I could get the owner to sign it over to me. My only regret is not getting to you before the bounty hunters did. I was so certain my viceroy could handle a few Nakodiles to capture one human. Additionally in hindsight, I admit that I had miscalculated here; I should have brought my personal armada." Rose shrugs nonchalantly.

Dave purses his lips. He didn't want to tell her that she actually _had_ gotten to him first. He refused to give her that satisfaction.

"In any case, I am in your clutches, my sweet, innocent brother. Do with me what you will. I am yours." The way she smiles with that black lipstick makes her look more sinister with the matching black roses sewn to her outfit.

"I want to make a deal of my own."

Rose raised her eyebrows in surprise. "A deal?"

"You heard me."

* * *

"Dave, that is a ridiculous plan," Jade tells him. She wants to slap him upside the head for creating the plan, and even Rose for agreeing to it! The three of them make their way to Jade's ship, which is parked not thirty feet away. They had been so close, but yet so far from freedom before that harrowing battle. Jade is almost done catching her breath.

"I don't doubt that you won't succeed, but we will see what happens at the end of your lifetime," Rose adds with a hint of self-satisfaction. "And remember that I will ultimately decide to keep your planet running in eighty years." Her smugness turns into a wayward smile. "I am also looking forward to finally seeing you past the age of fifty for once."

"Jade, would you arrest her or something already?" Dave whines. He lands on the ground steadily. He's learning.

"I'm a bounty hunter, not an authority regulator," Jade says.

"Then can we just leave her here?"

Jade pretends to think about it. "I guess we can."

"Don't you worry your pretty little heads," Rose interjects, somehow retaining her regality after all this. If Jade was in that situation, she's not sure how calm she would be. "I have my ways. Besides, I need to be around when my splices wake up." Rose suddenly has her weapons back and starts to sashay away.

Dave pats himself down, probably looking for the wand he just confiscated. Jade does the same, finding that the wand Dave had given her has disappeared. "How in the—"

"Dave?" Rose calls behind her. With disdain, she says, "You two deserve each other." And at that, she waves and doesn't look back.

"Oh my god," he says under his breath. Jade heard it clearly. She just hopes she's interpreting it right.

"You know I can hear you, right?" she says.

"Shit!" Dave says, turning red. "Uh..."

Jade opens the sliding hatch on the side of the ship with the push of a few buttons on her two-dimensional tablet.

"Look, Jade, I—"

She stops him by holding out her index finger. "Ever since I met you, I have thought you were strange and interesting. I had never really met any human who wasn't intimidated by me. Even when I covered my face and ears, I still didn't like the scorn they expressed. I don't like wearing a mask, and I feel that with you, I don't have to." What the hell is she saying? It sounds so sappy! "Believe me when I say that you're the first one of my own species who has respected me for who I am, not what I am."

It appears that Dave has been struck dumb with her words. The only indication that he still has any life left in him is his heart beating quicker than normal in his chest. She can hear it, as well as see his stoic face turn a shade darker red as she gingerly places a gloved hand on his cheek and lowers her face close to his.

"Kiss her, nak!"

"You fool! Nak, nak!"

"Idiot, nakka nak!"

"Oh my god," Jade mutters with a small laugh. She doesn't know how they did it without hearing them, but a crowd of nakodiles had formed around the ship, clamoring now to get a view.

"Shut up!" Dave yells at them. "You know what? Screw it." He pulls her head down and kisses her in front of all of these nakodiles. She wraps her arms around him easily and resists all urges to pick him up, a feeling of joy overwhelming her.

The last straw for Dave is when the nakodiles start applauding. Jade laughs softly and leads them inside the ship, closing the door behind them.

* * *

“You did what?!” Roxy shrieks. Rose had to actually protect her eardrums from the vocal assault. “What about your plan to raze the property?” After closer inspection, Roxy looked visually disturbed by the news she just heard. _Good_ , thinks Rose.

“We made a deal,” Rose answers simply.

“Explain yourself, sister,” Dirk says calmly. Dirk of all people should have expected such a pacifist decision from their brother, or Rose thinks he should have.

“He told me that in fifty years time, if the inhabitants on Earth were to somehow clean up their act, his words not mine, then I will leave them alone forever. Of course, I negotiated how well they should be able to complete said cleanup in so little time, and we came to a sensible conclusion.”

Dirk rolls his eyes behind his shades and Roxy breathes a sigh of relief.

“He has no guarantee that he will live that long,” Dirk points out. “I forget how long humans can live without Veil.”

“I have very good sources that tell me that he will be in excellent hands, even if it is the Witch’s hands.” It isn’t uncommon to forget names after centuries of Veil usage. Even the Witch’s name had disappeared from her memory. One of the unfortunate side effects of Veil was long-term memory loss. If one is not constantly reminded, then they will never remember.

“Maybe we could just let them be?” Roxy suggests. “After the way he treated me this last visit, I think they deserve each other. If they’re out of our hair, then I’m okay with it!”

“Roxy, no, that’s insane,” Dirk disagrees immediately. “He killed her. They would never last if they found out.”

Rose’s lip turns upward knowingly. She has already seen to it that no trace of the Witch’s true face will be found on intergalactic websites. That apis-spliced troll that lives on Earth is not as good as Roxy’s entire private hacker guild. What was even more amusing was that her arguing siblings have no idea that one of the Witch’s brothers has also reincarnated on Earth. She will keep that little secret to herself. The planets he owned will remain in Rose’s custody regardless if he knew or not, just like the planets the Witch owned previously will remain in Dirk’s.

“We went this long without telling ‘em anything, so we can keep it that way,”  Roxy says. _Bless her heart, she just wants to keep the peace_ , Rose thinks to herself.

“If it will put you both at ease, I will resume my surveillance,” Rose says. “They have made it abundantly clear that they have no intention of using Veil, so I may or may not get my way in the end anyway.”

“As long as no one is dead, I will opt out of this discussion.” Dirk shuts off his feed.

“Before you go, Rose, my lawyer is instructing me to investigate the slave trade on Jupiter. She says there are some illegal things going on again.” Roxy looked nervous saying that.

“It keeps happening, doesn’t it?” Rose sighs. She had rescued the pair of Carapacian splices from Jupiter and made them her personal bodyguards, but she was sure that the illegal splicing had ceased. Anyone caught performing such surgeries were ineligible for due process for crimes against humanity and other races and were executed on the spot, in public or in private. “Thank you for informing me, Roxy.”

“Bye, Rose!” Roxy exclaims, waving. She knew the informality was the code for assistance, but knowing Roxy, she will be fine for another hour at least. Rose sent an anonymous message to Terezi about the teal stash in Roxy’s vault for a reason. Dirk wisely orders fresh Veil only when he needs it, like Rose. Roxy’s accumulation is greedy to say the least.

She turns to her viewing portals trained to Earth. She can spy on the two lovers from here easily. Roxy did have a conceivable suggestion, though. She _could_ keep Dave on the edge and then never return to Earth for the culling, not even after he is dead. She _could_ make sure that her siblings don’t remember, either. She _could_ just let them have their silly infected planet no matter how well they clean it up in fifty years.

She catches the pair in a typical moment together: video games. This particular moment may or may not define Rose’s decision.

It will depend entirely on them.

 


End file.
